Call of the Void
by quietpagan
Summary: She'd gone onto the roof to get AWAY from people; just her luck some broody asshole was hiding in the shadows. Rated T for language
1. Chapter 1

Spoilers for the book _Sleeping Giants,_ by Sylvain Neuvel. I own none of the books, video games, movies, or music that I reference in here.

* * *

 _City of eight and a half million people_ , he thought as his feet hit the concrete. It was interesting how someone could feel more alone in such a crowded, vibrant place than anywhere else in the world. He took a quick look around the rooftop and stepped out of the shadow, walking along the protective wall that surrounded the edge. It wasn't too high, on one side; five feet down onto the gravel roof, which was nothing. Over fifteen stories and the entire city on the other side.

It wasn't on his route, but neither was he; it was just a good view. Far from uptown, which glittered on the distant end of the street like sunlight that sparkled on the river, the road directly below was lit only by streetlamps and apartment windows and the occasional passing car. For New York it was a quiet block.

He wasn't quite sure what had him hankering for an escape route and a quiet rooftop; admittedly he was still a bit miffed about the 'no opinion but mine' shit Leo had pulled, but as the months passed it only simmered in the back of his mind. Leo was arrogant and said stupid shit when riled, he knew that, and he had gotten over it. He would have called Casey for a night of ass-kicking, but regardless of the guy's enthusiasm for kicking creeps to the curb he still slipped up, still watched Raph and his family out of the corner of his eye, still said things that he didn't realize made Mikey's face twist, or Donny clench and unclench his fists, and Raphael didn't really want to deal with it tonight.

For all that tv made girls out to be dramatic and weepy, April was actually pretty cool to hang out with. She had more action and true crime films than chick flicks, and could prance around in her spindly high heels and match him in teasing and insults. And damned if those high heels didn't hurt, too. He felt a little guilty for immediately assuming that she'd have an apartment full of flowers and Nicholas Sparks books – which she did, but she also had articles reporting about wars and gang activity taped on her walls, and went on intel missions for Donnie without blinking an eye. She knew him better than to try to get him to talk about _feelings_ , and he knew her enough that he usually ended up passionately ranting during the second round of _Call of Duty_ anyway. But he didn't want to talk to April; he just wanted to walk on the edge of a random rooftop, feel the call of the void and the wind push him toward the street below, and resist. Because _that_ was a perfectly sane thing to do.

Shadow enveloped him as he walked behind a large air-conditioning unit, cutting a corner of the roof and sitting on the adjacent edge. It wasn't very comfortable; the ledge was really too small for someone with a huge shell covering their back, and he was a big guy anyway, so he had to concentrate to keep his balance.

He could take a hit harder than anyone in the world but that trigger-happy rhino guy, and he knew that he could survive the fall, if he tried.

But up here, high above the ground with nothing but the wind and the sounds of traffic and block parties distant and echoing, he felt truly alone in the city of eight million souls. The distance, the wind and the streetlights and the pavement below echoed in his bones, and he sat on the edge of the building and resisted, resisted, resisted.

Which is why he nearly fell off the roof when a voice to his right said:

"As far as last views go, it's not a bad one."

* * *

With her neighbors on either side of her apartment fighting and the young couple across the hall having some sort of jam session, she'd gone onto the roof to get _away_ from people. Armed with a book and her flashlight app, the corner of the roof had been colonized as Rubyland for several weeks, ever since she found out that the "Door is Alarmed" sign was lying. She'd even stashed a few extra reads and a packet of Oreos, though some pigeons might have gotten at it. As much as she enjoyed the city and all it had to offer, the immense crowds and constant people wore her down by the end of the day, and retreating to a solitary space that didn't echo with techno rap and ' _The blender's perfectly fine, Marcus, it's supposed to do that!'_ was her daily treat to herself.

So when she heard quiet footsteps padding along the side of the roof, she felt more annoyed than scared. _What the hell is anyone else doing up here_ , she snapped internally, shutting off her flashlight app before they could see it, not that she was really hidden anyway. _God, I hope nobody's come up here to get it off_. That was another thing about the big city, she'd found out. People whipped it out _anywhere_.

She mentally cringed as she listened to the person pace, but there were no creepy sounds, just footsteps. Then – the sound of something hard and heavy touching against the air-conditioner; vibrations against her back. She peered around the corner of the unit and saw nothing but a shadow within a shadow. It stayed still for a very long time, and her trepidation of meeting a pervert moved into a different kind of fear; if they weren't up here to party, or read, or jerk off, were they here to jump? They were certainly perched as precariously as possible.

What the hell was she supposed to do? She wasn't trained for this. What if she said the wrong thing and they jumped? What if she said the wrong thing, and they became _her_ responsibility? What if she was totally wrong and ended up making an ass of herself in front of someone who just wanted a quiet view of the city? And what if she didn't say anything, and watched them push off the edge and _splat_ on the pavement below, _sorry, Officer, yeah I saw them but I didn't really want to get involved…_

 _Shit shit shitshitshitshitshit…_

Her mouth opened before she really had time to plan what she wanted to say.

"As far as last views go," it said, "It's not a bad one."

They guy – as she found out by the screech – nearly ended up falling anyway, only preventing it by throwing his arms back against the air-conditioner. The solid banging jolted her and she dropped her book, swearing just as loudly as he did.

"What the hell," she heard him say. There were a few tense moments of silence, then:

"What the hell are you doing up here?"

Ruby felt around the dark for her book and held it up to the light.

"This is my corner," she said defensively. "The hell _you_ doing up here?"

The stranger was silent.

"Better not be jumping," she muttered. A sigh answered her.

"I'm not – it's…I wasn't gonna _jump_ ," the stranger said. She heard him shift, probably to a more stable spot. A peek around the edge of the AC showed nothing but a large black mass sitting in a larger, slightly-less black mass.

"Don't look!"

Something in his voice made her do what he said, and she turned away from the shadow, pressing her back against the metal unit. _The crap-?_

"What? Why?"  
"You just…you stay on your side, alright?"

"You okay?" She asked, the words almost instinctive. Someone stubbed their toe, _you okay?_ Someone looking broody at work, _you okay?_ Someone almost falling off a building and not wanting her to see them, _you okay?_

A soft exhalation answered her.  
"Fine," he said, "Just…"  
"I'll stay on my side and you stay on yours," Ruby said firmly. "No problem."

She noisily ruffled the pages of her book, but was too curious to even pretend to read.

"So…if you aren't here to jump, why are you up here," she asked. "How'd you even get up here? I didn't hear the door."

"Ain't none of your business."  
"True," she nodded, folding her book back in her lap. "So you picked a tiny ledge on a high rooftop for quiet contemplation. Totally normal."

She didn't believe him about the 'not jumping' thing. She was the last person who would claim to be good at reading people, but _something_ was wrong. She didn't trust him alone on the roof any more than she trusted herself on the edge of a cliff – not that she wanted to jump, but looking down a steep distance had a siren calling, and abyss that looked back at you, a chasm that begged you to lean a little further and fly. On _her_ side of the building was a fire escape, rickety and probably not a whole lot of good, but at least it cut off a measure of danger if she listened to the call and fell.

"Don't you have a book to read," said the stranger. She smiled at the strength in his voice, a far cry from the rough quietness of earlier.

"I got to a boring part," she replied. "You're more interesting."

He muttered something that she didn't understand, maybe in a different language, but she caught the annoyance in his voice.

"The doctor lady's alive at the end," he said.

Ruby paused at the sudden turn in the conversation.

"What?"  
"At the end of the book. They all have to go into hiding and the doctor lady, Rose – she's alive at the end but she doesn't remember anything."  
Ruby felt an electric shock run up her arms and she slammed her book down onto the gravel, simultaneously insulted and amused.

"You _fucker!"_

The stranger chuckled from the shadows as she spluttered.

" _ASS_ hole! You do _not_ just _ruin_ somebody's book!"

He laughed from his shadow and the clear amusement in his voice shook the remnants of fear from Ruby's heart.

"Outta push you off the roof just for that," she growled.

"Serves you right for nearly makin' me fall," he said.

"Nice obit that would be," said Ruby. "'Came up to kill himself but didn't want to fall, got pushed off roof anyway."

The laughing stopped, as she knew it would. She shifted a little closer to the edge. It was quiet for several minutes. In the building below echoes of music spun out of the windows, joined by the radios from passing cars and soft echoes of horns in the distance. She had never understood the whole 'city that never sleeps' thing until she'd moved to New York. If she wanted to get an ice cream and see a play, shop for shoes, buy a tacky I HEART NY t-shirt, somewhere out there she could. The city didn't shut down for something as quiet and quaint as night; it just turned on the lamps, and kept going.

"You still there," she asked, after her phone showed ten minutes of silence.

More shifting, and something leathery creaking.

"I wasn't gonna jump," said the stranger. "I just…like the feeling."

 _The call of the void_ , thought Ruby. She nodded to herself.

"Understandable," she said, "But you understand why I'm a little nervous right now?"  
"I'm not _your_ responsibility," he huffed.

"Then why are you still here? I mean, you're perfectly free to leave, you don't actually _have_ to sit out here and talk to me."

"Maybe I'm waitin' for you to piss off," he said caustically. Ruby snorted.

"No dice, jerkface. _I_ was here first, I got seniority on this roof right now. So you can either let me get back to my book – which you completely ruined, by the way – or you can tell me your name."  
"The hell you asking for?"

"Nosiness," said Ruby, which earned her a chuckle.

"Raphael," he said. She almost snorted before she reminded herself that her mom named her _Ruby Diamond_ , she didn't really have much room to judge.

"Like the archangel or the painter?"  
"Painter."  
"Cool."

The conversation petered off for a moment while they watched a guy with a boombox on this bike badly rap his way down the street.

"'S a good book," said Raphael.

"Hmm? Oh, you mean the one you _ruined?_ Like an asshole?"  
"Don'y mean you can't finish it," he said. Ruby prodded the book with her toe where it lay forlornly on the gravel.

"Try the sequel. I won't spoil it for you," he said quickly. Ruby saw the opening and pounced on it.

"Voracious reader?"  
"I got a lotta time," he said.

"Huh. Ever tried _Pillars of the Earth?_ Ken Follett?"

"Nah. Got _Fall of Giants_ , though. I liked that one."  
"I had to read that for my history class," said Ruby. "I couldn't keep all the names and stories straight. You like mythology?"  
"Don't really have an opinion. Why?"

 _Books_ , she could do _books._ Books and animals and movies were easy things to talk about. Ruby slid off the ledge and thumbed through her small stack of back-up books before she jumped up and slid the book she'd chosen around the corner of the AC unit.

"It's hilarious," she said. "Guaranteed to make you spit your drink or your money back."

" _Zues Grants Stupid Wishes?_ "  
"Mmm-hmm. Bring it back tomorrow night and tell me what you think."

There was a pause, but he said: "What, you donna give me a pop quiz?"

"Maybe," said Ruby. "Tomorrow night. You stay on your side and I'll stay on mine."  
She heard a quiet creaking, like he was playing with the book.

"I, uh-"  
"Don't you steal my book, now," Ruby said firmly. "You steal my book, I'll kick your ass."  
It was an empty threat, and they both knew it. But Ruby had read something somewhere about getting people with suicidal intentions to promise to something, and if she was going to get involved, she was going to go all the way through.

"Yeah, sure you will," said Raphael. "Fine."  
"Promise?"  
"Fine!"  
"No, no, you actually have to say that you promise," Ruby insisted.  
"Why the fuck-"  
"Promise."  
"I-"  
"Promi-"  
"I promise to bring your damn book back tomorrow night," said Raphael, "Jeeze, lady."  
"Great."  
Ruby hopped off the ledge and scooted her book-and-Oreo hoard into a neat pile in the corner.

"See you then," she said, and walked to the door that led to the stairs. There was a frantic scooting which she presumed was the total stranger she'd just promised to meet again making sure that he was deep enough in the shadow, but she didn't turn around to try to see. She barely heard the edge of ' _What the fuckin' hell…'_ being murmured before she opened the door and left the roof.

She stopped on the stair for a bit, resisting the urge to go back. She'd done her part; she'd make him promise to meet her, she'd tried to get him to vent, she'd tried to start up at least an acquaintance. Whatever happened next, it was his choice. She hoped that trusting him alone on the roof wouldn't be a disaster.

 _Human interaction, here I come_ , she thought.

* * *

 _How do you do feeeeeellliiiinnnggssss?_ I used to write so expressively when I was fourteen and filled with angst, and now it's like bluuuuhhhh…I spend all my days either by myself or with animals, so please forgive me if the conversations are stunted and sound weird, I've never been very good at them.

I think I was just daydreaming during work and listening to music when this happened. I have no idea if it will go any farther than a few chapters – I don't really have a set plot, just a few scenes that have been tangling in my head for a while.

For introverts, people can get tiring, even friends or family. After a while an introvert _neeeeds_ to be alone, to rejuvenate themselves. It's like a plant being overwatered; sometimes you have to leave it alone to empty back up before it can take any more water; or in this confusing metaphor, and more human interaction. It varies on the introvert: my mom can be around people all day and just need a little quiet time, but she still likes company from family; I can be around people only a few times a day and still want to spend my afternoons and evenings completely alone.

The book Ruby is reading is _Sleeping Giants_. Sorry for the spoilers. It's a really riveting read even so. _Pillars of the Earth_ is fantastic, though I have trouble with Follett's other books.

I went to Charleston for school after growing up in a very small town, and it was completely amazing to me that stores would keep open past ten, eleven, twelve. The single night I spent in New York was even more astonishing – I could buy a falafel and shop for souvenirs at three in the morning, if I had wanted. Night was day, just lit with a different light.


	2. Chapter 2

I don't own any of the books, movies, music, etc that I reference here.

Soundtrack for this chapter includes: Stitches, by Shawn Mendes; Sleepwalker, by Adam Lambert; Nirvana, by Adam Lambert.

* * *

Work ghosted along the next day, a serious of kennels and medications and meet-and-greets that flowed from one minute to the next, a familiar routine that both grounded her and allowed her mind to wander. She was halfway through cleaning ears when she realized that she was actually looking forward to meeting a complete stranger on a rooftop in the dark. As an intense introvert in a new city with questionable social skills, friends had not quite happened to her yet – the process was usually a lengthy one in average circumstances, but she supposed that the events of the previous night were good enough. That was how people became friends anyway, wasn't it? You just picked a person and said 'Yup, I'm going to regularly socialize with this one.' Easy.

And why did they have to be friends? Ruby was just making sure that no one became 'street pizza', which was apparently a thing people actually said, or at least on tv. She'd just evaluate his mental state and then trust him to take care of himself like a responsible adult. Him, not her. She already was a responsible adult.

She didn't really feel like it when a coworker found her digging a cotton ball into a squirming kitten's ear, whispering _I'm a responsible adult, I'm a responsible adult_ over and over to herself, and asked if she needed to take lunch early, but whatever. She paid taxes and bought her own vegetables and talked to _strange men on rooftops_. This would never have happened back in her old town, Ruby mused the rest of the day. Mostly because there weren't really any buildings other than houses or sheds, and also her mother would have walloped any man that didn't come to the front door.

Work both couldn't end soon enough and didn't last nearly as long as she wanted, and she found herself back at her noisy apartment with absolutely no idea what the hell she was doing. So she put down her bag, hung up her jacket, ate a little dinner, and headed up to the rooftop while it was still light, a plastic bag full of books on one arm and her headphones threading a soothing beat into her overcharged brain. She didn't think about her visitor until it got dark enough to have to use her flashlight app, and even then she got through almost four chapters of _Song of Achilles_ before she felt a reverberation against the back of the air-conditioning unit. She pulled off her headphones just as _Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes_ flew from the other side of the unit and landed in the gravel at her feet.

"Oh, was it no good," Ruby said mildly, picking it up and shaking debris from its pages.

"It was alright," said Raphael, out of sight. "If you like that kinda thing."  
"You nearly bust a lung, admit it."  
He chuckled at that and Ruby gave herself a mental fist-pump.

"Never read a book written like that," he said.

"I know, right? Here." She rummaged in her bag and slid two books onto the shadowed edge of the wall.

"What are we, starting a book club?"

"No reason why not," said Ruby. "I don't really have anybody else to talk books with."

He didn't comment on that, and she heard him slide closer to her side of the ledge, a papery rustle indicating that he had picked up the books.

" _I, Lucifer_?"  
"Yep. Not really my kind of content, but I liked the style it was written in. More casual, you know? More into the actual voice of the character."

"Huh."

"What kind do you usually like?"  
More ruffling, then silence.

"We're really going to do the book club thing?"  
"You got anywhere else to be? You don't _have_ to be here."

"If I remember right _,"_ said Raphael, delicate as his rough voice would allow, " _Somebody_ made me promise to meet them."

"How horrible of me, I'm sure. So: favorite genre?"  
"Don't really have one. Anything I can get my hands on, I'll read."

"Wish I could be less picky," said Ruby. She picked up a little book at held it up to the light.

"You read Discworld?"  
"Is that the one with the wizard who fucks up a lot?"  
Ruby giggled.

"It's _wizzard,_ actually, but yeah. But those aren't the best books, you need to read the City Watch series. It's a lot like New York."

She stuck the book into the shadows and heard it being dragged away.

"Don't think I can finish all these by tomorrow night," said Raphael.

"No problem. Bring them back in a few days, then, if you can bear to be parted from my company for so long."

He had a really nice laugh, she decided. A quiet mutter of ' _Sounds like Mikey'_ trickled around the corner of the building, and she tilted her head.

"Brother?"  
The laugh fell silent, and so did he for several moments, making Ruby backtrack quickly.

"Nevermind. Not my business."  
A grunt replied, and they both stayed quiet for a minute.

 _This would be a lot easier if he were a cat,_ Ruby thought grimly. _Cats are easy to chat with._

The building was actually relatively peaceful, for once; her neighbors to the right of her apartment hadn't argued all night, though the distant strains of her neighbors to the left could be heard winding through the darkness. It wasn't like they were really mean to each other, they just fought constantly; Ruby honestly wondered if they considered it foreplay, since they certainly made up every night.

"What music're you listening to?"

Ruby wrenched herself from her wandering thoughts and quickly fumbled with her headset.

" _Stitches,"_ she said, the unmistakable beat quietly threading around her neck as she put them back down and glanced at her phone, naming the artist.

"You like his stuff?"  
"Actually, that's the only song I know," said Ruby, tapping her fingers against her knee in time to the beat. "I really like the beat. You?"  
"Don't really know that one. What's-?"

Ruby took off her headphones and put them beyond the edge of the shadow, turning the song back to the beginning. The sound faded as he picked up the set, but since she could still hear it slightly she guessed that he didn't put them on. They were adjustable in size, so maybe he didn't trust her to not be able to hear her? It fit, since he didn't want her to see him.

After a few moments a soft tapping indicated that he'd been drawn into the beat as well, and she smiled while thumbing through her music collection. She put another song on just as the first ended and sat there for a couple of minutes, watching the quiet street while tinny music and light tapping came from around the corner of the AC unit. He put the headphones on the edge of the shadow just before the song ended.

"Not bad."

"Thanks. Got any requests?"  
He paused, then named an album from the same artist and she pulled it up. Raphael took the headphones back, Ruby picked up her book, and they stayed in their respective spots for almost an hour, just reading and listening to music. Ruby smiled as she crinkled the edge of a page with her thumb, quite thrilled with how things had turned out.

* * *

Raphael slid the headphones off as the last song of the album hit its final beat, wrapping the cord loosely around them and pushing them to the edge of the corner. The girl on the other side reached an amber-colored hand and delicately picked them up, closing her book with a sharp crease to a page.

"No more?"  
"Gotta get back," he said. He actually did have a patrol to go on, but not for another half hour. He'd gotten almost halfway through one of the books she'd (lent? Given?) him, but he was itching for movement and he didn't want to think over the events of the night on the same rooftop as the weird chick he was thinking about.

He noticed that she didn't press him for information; she stayed on her side of the corner when he told her not to look, she didn't question him on that or ask him about Mikey when he slipped up or where he lived or anything. He'd kept an ear out the whole hour, but not once did she try to peek around the corner again, and now she didn't ask where he was going. It was like hanging around the Anti-Leonardo.

"Okay," she said, and he heard her rustle with the plastic bag.  
"You want the rest of these, or are those three good for now?"  
Looking down at his thumb stuck between the pages of a rather lewd scene in _I, Lucifer_ , he folded down a top corner and picked up the other two books.

"Yeah, they're good. You really wanna give me these?"  
"No, but I'll lend them to you," she replied. "Actually, you can keep _I, Lucifer_ , but the other two I'd like back when you finish them."  
"Shouldn't be more than a couple of days," he muttered, carefully slipping the books into a pocket, making sure they were secure and covered from anyone who might ask where he'd gotten them. He hadn't told his brothers that he'd gotten caught on a rooftop, yet, and he wasn't actually sure that he wanted to. As much as he knew he couldn't trust her with much, he still wanted to keep the two meetings a secret. Maybe he'd let Donny know, when he found out more about her, just so he could be sure she wasn't going to rave about some weirdo she met on a roof to someone. But this felt secret, quiet; something he didn't want to share.

"I'm up here most nights, then," said the woman. "Let me know what you think about the Discworld book, I've got the whole collection if you like it."

And nothing else! Didn't even ask what his last name was, not that he could have answered her.

"Thanks," he said, standing up carefully and stretching his legs. A rustle told him that she had gotten back to her own book.

"Goodnight," she said.

"Yeah," he replied. "You too."

He stayed and watched from a different rooftop for twenty minutes, just to see if she moved, as he had done the previous night; she did nothing but turn the pages of her book, though once she leaned into the corner and started eating what looked like an Oreo cookie. Didn't peer around the corner of the AC. Didn't look around to the other rooftops. Either she was just dangerously unobservant or she was deliberately giving him privacy.

The books felt heavy in his pocket and he checked on them again; not that he couldn't lie if someone asked him where he'd gotten them. But he didn't want his bros asking to borrow them, especially since he said he'd have them back in a few days. This was private.

Okay, so, maybe he was acting like some gullible lunatic, talking to a strange human on a rooftop, who he didn't even know the _name_ of, but he _wanted_ to trust her. And he wanted to go back.

Patrol went about as smoothly as it usually did, after he met his brothers in a different neighborhood. Things were different, now that they semi-worked with the NYPD; they still had to hide before the police showed up, but if the cop was one of the two dozen or so that knew about them Leo liked to stay a minute and explain exactly what had gone down. Mikey usually joined him, just enjoying the attention, while Donnie and Raph generally waited on the side, eager to continue on to the next alleyway, the next sleezeball. It was weird staying in the light and letting someone see them; Mikey seemed to have no problem with it, but to Raph and Donnie it was still strange, and having the police officer glance their way while talking to Leo made Raphael feel uneasy.

He knew that Donnie especially had a problem with it; in the days between their fight with Krang and the key ceremony, Donatello had been obsessed with monitoring the phones and emails of every person at police headquarters, checking for any shred of evidence that they might betray his family. He'd had the hardest time when it came to working with the cops, not that anyone could tell unless they were looking for it. But Raph knew that Donnie had had nightmares about vivisection and labs and cold eyes ever since he was a kid and had figured out what people would _do_ to them. After the clusterfuck that was Sachs's lab, the nightmares had popped back up again, and if Donnie had been anal about checking and re-checking and re-re-checking their security systems and cameras, it had only tripled after their break-in of police headquarters. He'd cooperate with the cops as much as he needed to – he even kept up correspondence with several of them – but he trusted their new allies the least.

Half-working with the NYPD gave them more liberties but it added a few obstacles as well. They didn't have to do everything themselves anymore; if they heard of something about to go down, they could actually tell the cops to handle it and move on to something else, but Chief Vincent was only semi-happy about having four vigilantes run around the city. She expected them to go slower, give the officers a statement instead of just taking out the bad guy and disappearing with the assumption that somebody would eventually see the unconscious body and call the cops. Raph liked their old way of doing things, hit-and-vanish, quick and efficient. Vincent got a little snooty about the condition of the criminals too, but what were they supposed to do, lightly smack them on the hand and lecture them about changing their ways?

Actually, Leo probably _would_ , but there was no way that Raphael was going to look an aborted rapist in the face and _not_ kick their ass into a wall. Chief Vincent had to cooperate with _them_ as much as they did with her; she didn't control them, and they worked with her guidelines by their own choice. If they did something she didn't like, there wasn't much she could do about it without having the public find out that the NYPD was _working_ with four mutant vigilantes, so Raph's basic rule consisted of Whatever Chief Vincent Doesn't Know Won't Kill Her, And If It Does It Ain't My Fault.

Tonight's hold-up was a tag-team of muggers who had gone after some skinny student. The kid had actually put up a decent fight, grabbing a broken broom handle and knocking one of the guys out before Raph and Mikey had taken the other. He'd caught a glimpse of them too, just before running off and yelling about something being 'totally metal!'. The police had heard the commotion from just around the corner and they'd had to hide before they saw it was Officer Deltino, one of Donnie's contacts. So Mikey went off a mile a minute and Leo had to jump down and explain in a way the bewildered officer could actually understand, and the whole thing put them nearly fifteen minutes behind when they could have been out-and-in in less than one. They split into teams of two for the rest of the night, with Raph and Donnie sticking together, which was more than perfect; Mikey and Leo could have their tea parties with the cops while he and Donnie actually got shit done.

Donnie stayed quiet while Raphael simmered through several muggings and one armed robbery, not commenting on his dark mood and going off to his own space when they got home. Raph unloaded his gear in a huff and pulled three small books out of one of his pockets; he remembered with a jolt that the evening had actually started with a laughing woman and shared music, and he stuck the books in a little crater he'd punched in the wall some weeks before, hidden by the American flag.

Mikey and Leo weren't back yet and he was able to read for a while, hiding the book behind a magazine. He was careful not to tear or crease the pages or the cover, even though the woman had said he could keep the book. He'd never gotten an actual gift from someone other than April or his family, even if itwas just a stupid little book.

He read until his other brothers got home, Mikey whooping from a night well spent and Leo going off to meditate and report to Splinter. He stuck the book between the mattress and the wall just before Mikey got to their shared room, pretending to be absorbed by the water-stained issue of _Orthodontics Weekly._ Michelangelo flopped onto the lower bunk, tapping his feet against the poles.

"Shoulda been there, bro – we helped this little old lady get her bags back, and then there were some guys wailing on this other dude and we totally trashed them, and there was this stripper who actually _thanked_ us when we got this crazy dude away from him!"  
Raphael shuffled a page, raising a brow at a gruesome image of someone's deformed lower jaw.

"Sounds like a good night. Cops didn't slow you down none?"  
"I don't know what you got against them, bro," said Mikey. A whoosh and leathery clamor told him that Mikey was playing with his shoe collection.

"We got to talk to Gonzales and Perry again, and they're totally cool! Perry gave me his phone number if we ever need him. I honestly never thought I'd update my contact list past you guys and April."

Raph looked over the cover of his magazine, but all he could see of his youngest brother was a hand idly spinning a sneaker in a circle.

"…He said he was sorry for calling us monsters," said Mikey, and Raph could hear the forced casualness in his voice. He turned back to his magazine and rubbed out the crinkles he'd put in the page. He'd 'talked' to Perry before, a conversation which mostly consisted of cracking his knuckles and making meaningful glances between Mikey and the cop who'd hurt him.

"Don't know if I forgive him for makin' you cry."  
"I wasn't crying, bro!"  
Michelangelo jumped on the slight, as Raphael knew he would, all shadows forgotten.

"The only person who's gonna be crying around here is you, when-"  
"-When I kick your shell without even breaking a sweat? Yeah, sure. Wailing in despair at _your_ pathetic skills."  
Michelangelo threw a shoe at him, Raph chucked his magazine at his brother's head, and they tussled until Splinter called for dinner. Mikey's smile didn't drop the rest of the night, and between his brother's teasing and the book jammed under his mattress Raph's sour mood neglected to return.

* * *

I know Raphael is always depicted as the 'all brawns, no brain' guy, but we also see him reading quite a lot. Mostly magazines, but he's actually _reading_ them, not just flipping the pictures. So I headcanon that he's actually a big reader; he certainly has had the time. But I guess that would cut into the 'tough guy' image a bit, so he doesn't really talk books with anybody at home.

I'm a pretty quiet person in general, but at work when it's just me and the cats I'll jabber and talk to myself and narrate everything I do and I have no idea _why_.

Find yourself someone you can spend an hour just _being_ with, doing your own things, but with company. Being friends doesn't mean you constantly have to talk or interact with each other; one person can read while another plays a video game or something, it's just about enjoying the other person's presence.

I re-played the 'getting caught breaking into police headquarters' scene over and over and I still cannot get over how absolutely _terrified_ Donnie looks. Raph's just like ' _dammit I fucked up'_ and Mikey's like ' _oh shit we got caught'_ and Leo's like ' _fuck those idiots got us caught'_ but Donny's face is saying ' _fuck we're caught labs knives experimentation'._ I'd bet that Splinter told them when they were kids that humans would not be kind if they found out about them, but Donnie's the one who really got what that meant, and it was only solidified by what happened with Sachs and his scientists. So during that scene everybody else is looking heartbroken or angry or guilty, but Donnie is absolutely _scared to death_.

Did you see the non-Bay!Casey Jones cameo I put in there?

Remember that _nobody messes with Mikey._ I very much doubt that Raphael would have forgotten that 'monster' comment and its effects on his smallest brother.


	3. Chapter 3

Ay yo, readers: What do you think about making Ruby a dude? There are so few fics where the OC is a dude. I'm not shipping anyone here, the most I'm doing is platonic cuddling, which guys actually _can_ do without it being awkward. What do you think?

Also, I don't own any of the books or music or films or anything I reference here. That would be cool. But I don't.

IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR EVENTUAL SMUT, TURN AWAY NOW: YOU AIN'T GONNA GET IT. Actually, if you're even looking for _romance_ , this is not the story for you. I deal in friendship, platonic intimacy, and asexuality, with hints and innuendo at the maximum. The most you'll see in this fic is platonic cuddling. No ships here. Just didn't want anyone to get disappointed.

* * *

The next few days passed in a blur of cats and kittens, dogs and laundry up the wazoo, until Ruby was practically running home in order to collapse on what she deemed to be _her_ rooftop. Her strange new book-friend didn't show up, but she wasn't bothered; she enjoyed her solitary time, away from barking dogs and people phoning about lost pets. She lost herself in a new fantasy series, letting the plots and characters wash away the nagging germy feeling that came after cleaning cages, dragons and political mysteries drowning the sorrow of euthanizing a suffering kitten or an injured bird. She was procrastinating on replying to an email; her younger sister didn't write often, but when he did, he wrote _long_. Making an appropriate reply would take some time. Until then, it was just her, a pile of books, and the echoes of the city around her.

New York had not been a place that Ruby initially wanted to live in; lazy suburbs in southern states hadn't prepared her much for city life. But the first shelter she had worked for moved, and she had been unable to go with it; instead, her boss recommended her to a colleague up north. She took a train up for a few days and felt more at home than she ever had in Savannah or Charleston. The noise had been difficult to get used to, the constant and blazing lights almost blinding at night, and she missed seeing the stars. But she didn't have to take a bus to the center of the city for a little culture, there was no muddy marsh smell, and she didn't have to maneuver around horse crap in the streets. Admittedly, she scooped dog crap every week, but at least dogs were cuter than horses.

The evenings spent alone gave her a proper chance to re-evaluate her sanity and come up with ten thousand possibilities about her shadowed acquaintance. He was seriously cute, he was seriously deformed, he was a criminal, he was a celebrity, he was actually a woman with a really deep voice, he was an alien, he was a crazy person, he was just lonely, he hadn't been suicidal at all and she'd made herself look like an idiot, he _had_ been suicidal and she saved his life and now she was stuck with him, he was imaginary, he was her homeless brother from Florida, the possibilities were endless and probably insane, but when you're starting a book club with a big shadow on a rooftop there really isn't much sanity to begin with. All she knew was that he was huge, moved quietly, was called Raphael, and knew someone named Mikey. And didn't like questions, but really, what shadow on a rooftop did?

It was three days before she met him again, halfway through an eighties fantasy book her mother had given her that was _really_ boring but she still wanted to make an effort. She'd left her music off; an encounter in the subway had reminded her that no matter how much she wanted to escape the noise, it was dangerous to be deaf to her surroundings.

It honestly didn't matter anyway, because she didn't hear him coming. The door to the roof didn't scrape, there were no footsteps –

… _He was Batman, he was a ninja, he was Spiderman…_

\- but she felt the vibrations of him sitting down on the ledge, and she heard the slide of paperbacks against the brick. Ruby picked them up, grabbed three more, and slid them into the shadows.

"Books two through four," she said. "Actually, it's not a real series, just the same setting and characters, but they're in chronological order. The second book is my favorite."

A minute passed, and she wondered if he was still there. Perhaps he had just returned the books and left? It was a thought that gave her an odd, lonely pang, which ticked her off a bit. She was _not_ going to feel lonely about her mysterious shadowy acquaintance not hanging out with her.

"Talk or I'm looking to see if you're still there," she warned.

"Why are you doing this," came Raphael's rough voice. Ruby thumped the brick in triumph.

"Don't have any other book buddies," she said, putting a bookmark into her boring novel and setting it on the gravel.

"I'm serious. _Why_ are you doing this?"

"What, like I'm doing you a favor? You're free to go, I'm not keeping you here," Ruby said. She turned off her flashlight app and picked her fingernails. In the dark, Raphael huffed.

"Sometimes it's actually just nice to _be_ with someone," Ruby said. "You don't have to chat, there's no obligation for actual hanging out – it's just you doing your thing and me doing mine, in a shared space. Does there have to be a _why?"_

"You're not gonna ask me anything?"  
A particularly stubborn piece of nail polish finally flaked off, and Ruby flicked it across the ledge.

"I like Twenty Questions as well as anybody, but, if I _recall_ correctly, _you're_ the one who got snooty about me getting a look at you or being nosy. I'd love to get a nice profile on you, but if you don't want that, that's fine."  
Raphael was quiet again, and Ruby softly thudded her head against the AC unit.

"Just let me slowly _die_ of curiosity, I get it."

A quiet _heh_ came from the shadows, and eventually Ruby heard the pile of books being moved. She gave herself a mental fist-pump and was surprised to see a pair of earbuds swing into the light.

She grabbed them up and pulled softly.

"I, uh…"

Ruby scooted a little closer to the shadow to make the earbuds reach and heard Raphael move as well.

… _It's a trap, it's a good song, it's a country song, oh please don't let it be a country song, it's a porn recording, it's Coldplay…_

"Here," he said gruffly. She waited a moment before he pressed a button, making a soft light just barely illuminate a giant shape in her peripheral vision. Ruby kept her eyes centered on the street below as music threaded through the wires.

What.

The.

Fuck.

Holy _SHIT!_

It was like three minutes of…well, 'ear sex' sounded too kinky, but it was the best she could think of.

"What the actual fuck was that?!"  
Ruby pulled out the earbuds to hear Raphael chuckling.

"Good, ain't it?"

" _Holy shit!"_

"My brother mashed that up," said Raphael. Ruby took a moment to appreciate the tiny opening-up before putting the earphones back in.

"I officially love your brother. Play that again."

He set her on a playlist of mashed-up songs, some she recognized, others she didn't, all beautifully rendered and put together. She settled back against the air-conditioning unit and let the music wash through her.

Music created its own little universe, a microcosm of sound and rhythm that vibrated through her head and chest. She watched the city flow by, tapping her fingers on the brick until they tingled. Little flickers of light in the corner of her eyes just _barely_ illuminated the first chapter of one of the books she'd given Raphael, but she didn't have enough care to wonder how the hell he could read in such dim light. She lost herself to the music and the lights of the city for an unknown length of time. The night grew chillier, but she wasn't bothered by it, dancing softly in the spot to keep warm.

The last song cut off thirty seconds in, and Ruby protested loudly.

"Hey! What's up?"

"Not that one," grunted Raphael, mashing buttons. Ruby tugged gently on the cord.

"What's wrong with that one? It was good."

"I…my bros and I made that one," he said, making Ruby's eyes widen.

"You _made_ it? Dude, play it."

After a second's hesitation he did so; it was surprisingly well-done for a homemade song. She had the feeling that there were a lot of inside references she was missing, but it had a good beat anyway.

"You guys did really well," she said, as she removed the earbuds and watched them fly back into the shadow. Raphael didn't say anything more than a grunt, but she guessed that he was pleased.

"Did your brother do all those other songs?"  
"Some of 'em," he said. "Got a few off YouTube."

"I'll have to look them up."

And there went the conversation. Ruby and Raphael slid away from each other and went back to their respective books, spending the next three-quarters of an hour in silence. Ruby wished she were a better conversationalist, but the only thing she could think of were personal questions, especially since he had opened up a little bit. How many brothers did he have? At least two, she knew, one possibly named Mikey. One was adept at computers, and all were musical enough to write and record a decent song.

He shouldn't have given her _anything_ , because now she was dying to know what else she could pry from him. Torn between giving him his privacy and indulging her curiosity, she settled for annoying another factoid out of him by asking one the most aggravating questions one could ever ask a reader.

"So what page you on?"

Paper crinkled.

"Don't you start," said Raphael. Ruby grinned to herself. She had the follow-up questions, 'what's it about' and 'is it good' all lined up.

"How the frickity frack can you see?"

"I have good night vision," he said, and she heard a page turn. "Don't you got a book to read?"  
"It's boring as hell," she began, just before one of the novels she'd just given him was shoved into the light.

"There. Read and shut up."

But Ruby was feeling puckish and energetic, wired up from music and the intrigue of her shadowed guest, and she didn't feel like reading. But before she could thumb through the book a light, fun tune buzzed through the air.

"Shit!"

The sound of a thudding on brick, rapid, heavy movement, creaking of leather? The tune stopped and Ruby quickly shifted away, back over to the other side of the AC unit as Raphael heavily tapped on a screen.

" _What?"_

She couldn't hear the words from the caller, but the tone sounded annoyed.

"Nothin', just can't talk right now. What do you want?"

Eavesdropping was something Ruby hated – in other people. Besides, if he really didn't want her to hear the conversation, he could just move away. She didn't bother pretending to read and just listened to the short phone call.

"Why the hell does she want to meet with us? Fine. Yeah, I'll see ya."

The rooftop was silent for a moment, and then she heard Raphael shifting.

"I gotta go," he muttered. Ruby reached her hand behind her and gave him back the book. It slid quickly from her fingers and she heard it being shoved into a pocket or something.

"Bring them back?"  
"Yeah," he said, sounding occupied. "Might be a few days."

"No problem. Thanks for the music."

"Sure," said Raphael. She heard him stand up, something hard scraping against the metal unit.

"Be seeing you."

 _In a manner of speaking. "_ 'Night."

There was no answer. She strained her ears to hear something, anything, but he disappeared.

* * *

Raph made it to an adjacent rooftop within seconds, thudding quietly onto the concrete. He knew he was needed as soon as possible, but he wanted to make sure, wanted to be certain that the woman wasn't going to do anything. He stayed for ten minutes, watching her do nothing more than pick up a book, discard it, and start another.

She'd been more curious than on the other nights, and he briefly considered returning the borrowed books and not coming back. But in her defense, he _had_ opened up a bit. He'd wanted to see what she would do. She hadn't ignored the information, but he knew she'd been holding back questions, allowing him as much privacy and anonymity as she could give him. He appreciated that.

Raphael watched until she put away her books and went back inside, and then turned around to find himself plastron-to-plastron with Michelangelo.

Mikey ducked the reflexive fist to the face.

"Dude!"

Raphael stepped back, breathing heavily.

 _Shit! Shit shit shit shit shi!_

Mikey didn't seem too phased by almost getting his teeth knocked out, any more than he ever did.

"Seriously, Raph," he said, a mock-serious expression under his mask. "Watching a chick read? That's kind of creepy, bro."

Raphael barely heard him, his head swimming with a mixture of panic, anger, and embarrassment. It bubbled under his skin and he paced, agitatedly trying to burn it away. Michelangelo chatted amiably, creating background noise to the buzzing in Raph's head that was both soothing and annoying.

"Kind of cute, though," said Mikey. "I'd say on a scale from 'one' to 'April', I'd give her a solid 'Uma Thurman'. Still creepy, though. I mean, there's people-watching and then there's _people-watching._ There's a line, dude."

"I wasn't watchin' her," Raph said, even as he knew the words were false. "Wasn't watchin' her like _that."_

Mikey patiently waited for him to stop pacing, his eyes flickering back and forth between Raphael and the woman's empty rooftop.

"Oh, hey, I can see which apartment she's in."

Raph blinked and turned around; sure enough, a light had come on in one of the windows half-way up, and he recognized a stout figure with a bushy crown of hair. He smacked Mikey on the arm.

"Quit that," he muttered, turning away. Mikey rubbed his arm and jumped onto the ledge, hopping to and fro with unspent energy.

" _Ohhh_ , so it's only creepy when _I_ do it, I totally get it."

"I was making sure she wasn't gonna tell anybody!"

Mikey stopped and grinned at him. _Ah, sewer apples…_

"Tell anybody about _what_? Ohhhh…!"  
Raphael briefly considered just shoving him off the edge for the jibe he knew he was about to endure.

"You have a secret girlfriend…!"

"'S'not my girlfriend."

"What's her name?"  
"No clue."

"Dude."

Mikey jumped down, seating himself on the ledge with enough force to crack the concrete.

"You got a girlfriend and you don't even _know her name?_ That's _seriously_ tacky, Raph!"  
Raphael ignored him and started to trudge across the rooftop.

"C'mon, knucklehead," he growled. "Ain't we got an 'important meeting' to go to?"

Mikey fell in beside him, practically vibrating in excitement.

"Yeah, dude. Hey! If you want to keep an eye on her, why don't you just ask Donnie to-"

"You don't tell Donnie," Raphael said, stopping suddenly and turning to face his brother. Mikey snaped his mouth closed.

"You don't tell Leo, you don't tell Dad. No April, or Casey, or your little officer friends, do you hear me?"

Mikey nodded silently and Raph briefly felt guilty for closing him off. Mikey hadn't looked like that since the whole mutagen clutsterfuck.

"Look, it's just…you remember when you found that little corner that you could sit in and watch the snow, and you didn't want anybody to know about it?"  
Mikey nodded slowly, some of whatever bad shit he was feeling seeping out of his eyes.

"It's like that," said Raph. "It's…one of those things you wanna have yourself."

Growing up in close quarters with four other people had made each of them very accustomed to sharing everything, and very defensive of the tiny things they could keep for themselves and themselves only. For Raph it was his books; for Mikey it was a small collection of drawings and art supplies that he hid away. He wasn't sure what Leo or Splinter's were, and Donnie was the worst about it, hoarding everything that caught his intellect and guarding his treasures fiercely, but everybody had little things they strived to keep private, pieces of individuality to keep their sanity.

Mikey nodded slowly, and they started over the rooftops, not speaking until they were a block from the meeting point.

"This isn't a quiet corner, though," Mikey said. Raph took a moment to catch his breath.

"Yeah, it is," he said. "It's just got someone else in it."

"Like when Leo goes to meditate with Master Splinter?"

"Yeah."

Mikey nodded, and Raph knew he understood.

They got a few glares from Leo for showing up late, but he declined to give them the usual lecture, partly because of Raph's 'the hell can you do about it' look and mostly because they were being watched by Chief Vincent and her goons, Casey included.

The meeting was more for Donnie anyway, and probably for a show of trust more than anything else. Vincent had called them in to give them some the information her team had found during their investigation of Stockman's lab; stuff about mutations and the mutagen, both the green goo from April's old video tapes and the purple shit. There were even some files on Raph and his brothers, though Stockman didn't have much – mostly just notes from Sachs's labs.

It was nothing that Donatello hadn't already acquired for himself. Raph knew he had the entire police force of New York flagged for anything turtle, mutant, or alien related, and he had hacked into Stockman's computer system the day after their fight with Krang. But Vincent didn't have to know that.

Donatello politely listened to the computer geek cops ramble on over what they thought would be new information to him, while Raph stood back and watched. Leo and Mikey were already chatting with their new cop buddies when Casey came over and stood beside him, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall like it made him look cool.

"Glad you showed up," he said. "Finally."

"What, you miss my dazzling personality?"

"Nah, there's already plenty of shit in this alley, we didn't need any more."

Raphael straightened up a bit, just to emphasize the fact that he was a head taller than Jones, who, to his credit, didn't look very intimidated.

"Vincent finally let your ass back on the force?"  
"Yeah," said Casey, showing off his badge. Raphael huffed at it.

"Actually, I think she only let me back because I was in with _you_ guys."  
"'In'? Only 'cause April likes you."

Raph nodded toward Vincent, who was deep in discussion with Leo.

"I gotta worry about her?"  
Casey shook his head, knowing that he was talking about April's increasingly unusual and useful skillset, and Vincent's interest in it.

"If she were looking for a job, maybe. I know the chief likes her. Well, for a given value of _like._ "  
Raphael wasn't sure how he felt about that. April was sneaky, quick-thinking, and willing to take every advantage she could get, but cop!April might just get into more trouble than reporter!April, though at least she'd have a team above ground to back her up. April may have turned out to be more of a mom-friend than a mystical hogosha, but he still felt protective of her, especially with all the work she did to keep his family safe. She kind of inadvertently led Shredder to them the first time, but she'd more than made up for it with the field and intel work she did for them. And it was kind of nice, having a big sister.

He and Casey traded insults and bullshit for another twenty minutes, before Vincent called her cops back and Donnie and Leo gathered everybody up. He avoided Leo's questions on the way back about where he and Mikey had been and Leo didn't press it – it wasn't like it was unusual for Raph to go off on his own. He kept glancing at Mikey, but when Leo questioned him Michelangelo didn't say a word. Raph suddenly wondered if he was still carrying a grudge about Leo keeping the mutagen thing a secret, but Mikey didn't know how to hold a grudge – stuff just didn't boil in him like it did in Raph, didn't trail sticky fingers and settle into little corners of hate and resentment. He'd forgiven Officer Perry for the 'monster' comments before the guy had even apologized; Raph had thrown a punch at him tonight and Mikey probably didn't even think about it. He rolled his eyes at Mike's nonchalance and complete lack of animosity towards people who shat on him, but sometimes he envied it, too.

The rest of the evening, up into early morning and their respective bed-time, went as normally as it usually did, without a single wrinkle or question. Donnie was still in his computer corner by the time the sun began to rise, but Leo had gone to bed a half-hour before, Splinter was asleep, and Mikey had stopped buzzing like a huge green bee and settled down to read a comic on his bunk. Raphael read until his eyes burned, and he turned out the light ten minutes after Mikey had last turned a page.

One thing was bothering him, though.

He tapped on the frame of the bunk bed, two quick bursts. A few seconds passed, then Mikey tapped back.

"How'd you find me," Raph whispered hoarsely, leaning over the edge a bit. Mikey shifted on the bed beneath his and was quiet for a moment.

"Tracked your phone, dude."

Raph pulled back up, staring at the graffiti on the concrete ceiling. There was nothing to help that, he knew. They all had trackers on their phones, and the phones stayed on at all times. At _all_ times. After the shitstorm with Sachs _everybody_ had agreed on that, even Raphael. Donnie had given them all basic lessons on how to the use the trackers, and even though Raph rankled at the invasion of privacy, he knew the trackers were necessary and forced himself to follow the rules about them. He had simply underestimated how perceptive Michelangelo was, and how good he'd been getting at the programs Donnie showed him.

"You gonna go back?"

Raphael briefly considered lying, but knew it would be useless. He sucked at it and anyway, the next time he went to that rooftop he knew Mikey would just follow him.

"Yeah," he said. "Just – don't follow me again, okay? This is a private thing."

"Like the snow corner," Mikey whispered. Raph nodded to himself, and turned over on the bed, thinking the conversation was over. Two minutes into the growing morning, though, Mikey had to have the last word.

"Still creepy, though."

"Shut up."

* * *

My kink is having the bros actually being bros, and being deeper than their archetypes. I'd love to write about Michelangelo's character, I had to stop myself, but he's sooo much deeper than the show writers or a lot of fics give him credit for. _He_ was the one to hack April into the NYPD's system in OotS, for instance. I loved how terrible a liar he was. Raphael, too.

I'd actually make Ruby a dude, but there are few fics where it's a guy and a gal being platonic, and I don't want to get mixed up on the hims and the hims and the he's and the he's. What do you think? Leave a review and let me know, I'll go by popular opinion.

I can't believe spell-check didn't get me on 'wazoo'. Working at an animal shelter creates a shit-ton of laundry, five to seven loads in huge washers each day.

I've only ever visited Savannah, so I'm literally just making this up as I go along. It wasn't my original intention to make my character live a life similar to mine, but if I wrote her as an accountant from Minnesota I'd be bullshitting the character because I have no idea what accounting is like, or Minnesota. The fuck even _is_ Minnesota, I never hear anything about it. It's a lot easier to write what you _know_ than to make everything up. I've lived in Charleston, which was awesome and I'd love to go back, but I've stayed in South Carolina all my life. New York would be fun, but I'd still miss the moss and the swamps and the lazy southern-ness. And yes, there are horse-drawn buggies in Charleston and you do see horse crap on the streets sometimes. But it doesn't really smell bad. Good fertilizer.

The song Raph made Ruby listen to is _Radioactive in the Dark_ by AirGirlPhantom on YouTube, _not_ by Donatello, but it's genius just the same. Just type that title into YouTube and prepare to have your shoes and socks blow off. It's best with head or earphones for maximum experience. I'm serious. Listen to it. Go now before you forget. It's one of my favorite songs now.

The other song is _Shell Shocked_ , by Juicy J, which was the end credits song for the 2014 movie. I know a lot of people didn't like it but I _loved_ it, it's my workout song.

Just so you know, asking someone who's reading what their book is about, is it good, and what page they're on is a Deadly Sin, just like pulling out someone's earbuds is. Don't do it, you will instantly drop like twenty points in how much they like you.


	4. Chapter 4

I don't own any of the characters, movies, books, etc. that are mentioned in here, except for Ruby.

* * *

He made a point, the next time they met, to ask her name. It turned out to be _Ruby_ , although she didn't offer a last name. He figured that she has as much trouble trusting him as he did her; heck, probably more. But the visits got a little easier after that. He'd catch her nearly every day, even if they didn't have anything new to exchange. Being able to just do his own thing, without hiding behind a magazine or tuning out Mikey's caterwauling or Master Splinter's fucking _annoying_ meditation CDs, was incredibly relieving. Ruby didn't tell him so, but he got the feeling that she enjoyed having company during her downtime.

She got him hooked on the Discworld books; he brought her a few series he had painstakingly collected over the years. She didn't comment on the water-stained novels, and he didn't comment on the brand-new, unbroken books she 'lent' him but never asked him to return. He'd soon acquired his own little pile in the shadow, minus the Oreos. She let him borrow copies of Broadway musicals that he carefully hid from his brothers, and cussed him out when he brought her the first volume of 'Kill Bill' and none further.

Sometimes he was too wired up to read; meeting with Ruby usually took place before patrol, when he was keyed up to go and get moving. Those meetings were often short; just a quick exchange of words before he left to meet his brothers. He learned her schedule well enough to know when to expect her to still be up by the time patrol ended, and when she realized that he would be waiting for her then she stayed up later, even when it began to get colder at night.

It was sooner than Raph hoped, but later than he'd expected that Leo and Donnie caught on to the change in his schedule. He'd been out one time too many; he'd been home one night too late; and both they and Splinter were curious as to where he was going. He made the excuse of meeting up with Casey and hoped that none of them would follow up on that; Jones was so defensive and impossible to talk to that if Leo _did_ try to interrogate him he'd probably lie just to get on Leo's nerves, but Raph hoped that it wouldn't come to it. He was reluctant to actually ask Casey to cover for him; the idiot was still jonesing to be a detective, and Raphael didn't want to become his first 'case'.

Mikey didn't tell a soul. Raph hadn't talked to him further about what he was doing and Mikey did not ask. He was usually the nosiest of the four, but despite his lackadaisical attitude toward privacy he very clearly understood the need to have something that didn't have to be shared with anyone else, and he respected Raph's space. Raphael made his first request to Ruby about four weeks into their tentative friendship, and asked her for a few copies of comics he knew his brother was missing from his collection.

 _That_ opened a dialogue between them, about their families. Raph refused to give names, but he told her about his brothers - vague, shady details that could apply to any family anywhere. In return, she told him about hers. It was odd to hear about someone else's family; Raph's was so loud, so larger-than-life that they kind of drowned out anything else. April never talked about her father except in relation to _them_ and his work. Jones rarely discussed his little sister; apparently she was living upstate, but that was all Raph knew. Ruby, on the other hand, told him that she was the middle child in a group of three; one older brother and a younger sister, both of them very far away. She loved to talk about her family – their faults, their good points, the stupid shit they had pulled as kids – and for the first time Raph got a look at a family that did not intertwine with his, didn't have anything to do with aliens or psychopathic ninjas or mad scientists. It made him feel a little lonely, but also part of a larger world outside of his insane patch of New York underground.

Apparently she had not been in the city for long; the animal shelter that she worked at had only hired her nine months ago. Raphael, who had never been farther out of the city than Sachs's estate, was horrified at how little she had explored, and was not quiet about it. In exchange for her introducing him to Pat Conroy books, mail-ordering him pralines from Georgia, and showing him what was so fucking special about sweet tea, he gave her directions to the best food joints, the most striking rooftop views, and a hand-knit poncho. The poncho was a big hit; apparently nobody had ever made anything for her before, and she immediately shrugged off her coat and discarded it, wriggling into the wrap with every sign of enjoyment.

She wasn't nearly as reluctant to be seen as he was and he caught a few indistinct glimpses of her in those first few weeks. She wasn't as willowy as April and sometimes light would flash on the corner of her face, like she was wearing glasses, when they began to watch movies on her laptop (with difficulty. Ruby refused to dangle her computer on the ledge of a building so they had to find a different spot, one with a shadow large and deep enough that Raph felt comfortable hiding in it. It wasn't as good as the ledge and Ruby spent two weeks very obviously _not pushing_ him, but eventually they settled on a compromise where he stuck to the best shadow he could find and she simply wouldn't look into it.)

The amount of trouble that they both went to got on Raph's nerves and he wished, really wished, that he could just show up and sit beside her and they wouldn't have to keep secrets or dance around things he couldn't talk about. There was a hot feeling of shame that he quickly punched into the back of his mind that first month, until he realized that Ruby actually was not judging him. He could be as careless or as paranoid as he wanted and she'd roll with it. It was an unusual concept, and he wondered how far it could go. April got weirded out by the more inhuman aspects of their biology; Casey would say some of the stupidest shit without even thinking about it; Vern – as much as Raph disliked him – actually went with everything the easiest, but he still could be an insensitive dick. But Ruby cleaned up crap and molted feathers, treated scale-rot and ringworm, played with tarantulas and socialized feral cats, and Raph had the feeling that she wouldn't be weirded out by his family shedding the occasional skin or scutes or having to build specialized furniture. He would never find out, but it was a comforting thought.

It all nearly went to hell in a handbasket about three months after their acquaintance turned into an actual friendship, when Raph caught onto Donatello following him one night. He'd had to make a detour to Casey's place, a surprisingly nice little place in Brooklyn, and he hung around the empty apartment like he'd been there a hundred times before Jones got home and nearly ruined the whole thing. Casey went pretty easily with the whole 'we do this every night, just go with it' looks that Raph shot at him until Donnie went away, but tried to interrogate him afterward on what was going on. He sucked at it, and Raph merely sneered some sarcastic comments and went on his merry way, but he knew that Casey would be telling April, and April…would actually probably check with Raph before she went to anyone else. She was pretty cool about that, and had learned the consequences of saying the wrong things to the wrong people. Raphael was not looking forward to _that_ interrogation. He was comfortable lying to a lot people, but April was not one of them.

He didn't visit with Ruby for almost a solid two weeks after that – still leaving the lair every night, but either going to Casey's or April's or just running around the city, just to make sure that Donnie got off his trail. As much as he liked April, and tolerated Casey, he'd gotten used to the still nights on the rooftop. He returned to Ruby's just to have an Oreo thrown at his head; he'd caught it and eaten it, and they finished the package while he explained to her that he had not told his family about their meetings. She'd been quieter than normal that night, and when they watched a bootlegged movie she'd inched closer to his shadow than before. The possibility that she'd missed their meetings just as much as he did hadn't occurred to him; he'd teased her about it for a couple of days, but the realization had been a good feeling.

* * *

By the third week of October Ruby was ready to drop and sleep right on the clinic floor, she was so tired. Work had been particularly hectic with a horrifying number of tame and feral cats, three-quarters of which were black and therefore difficult to adopt, and a sudden cold snap had reminded her that she was little prepared for a New York winter. On top of everything else her mysterious rooftop had been AWOL for two weeks, making her wonder and worry about what had happened to him; had he been arrested? Kidnapped? Jumped off the roof? Got bored with their meetings? Moved? Murdered? Sick? His absence reminded her just how alone she was in the New York, with no family and no friends outside of work, insular and isolated in a city of eight million people.

He showed up quietly, so suddenly that Ruby chucked an Oreo at his head. Apparently he had some secret ninja moves, because he caught the thing before explaining to her that he had been getting his brothers off his back. It had never occurred to her that Raphael might have been keeping their meetings a secret, especially not from his family. But then, she hadn't told _her_ family about him. What was she supposed to say? That she was meeting a mysterious man on a rooftop, at night, without ever seeing him? Her brother would hitchhike straight up from Florida just to knock some sense into her and beat Raphael to a pulp. It was easy to understand his hiding and his absence, then. They'd watched _Pacific Rim_ and finished up her Oreos and Ruby had half-stuffed herself into Raphael's shadow, keeping her eyes averted but needing to feel that he was present. Work sucked the next day when she only got four hours of sleep, having stayed late on the rooftop to try and extend their meeting, but it was worth it.

Sometimes their visits were short, sometimes long, sometimes they talked and others they just read in silence, but they met almost every day after his disappearance. He'd usually show up either before her or very late into the evening, when she was just about ready to go to bed, and she had to wonder what exactly he did that kept him up and about so often. She'd looked around, but there was nobody called Raphael in her apartment building or the others next to it; it was as if he'd appeared straight out of the air. The fact that she couldn't give a physical description of him outside of _has a big silhouette and wears a lot of leather_ didn't help much either.

Their policy of 'no questions' frayed a bit at the edges when he told her about avoiding his brothers. She didn't ask for names and he didn't give them, but he was more open than he had been previously, telling her about something one brother blew up, or a prank the youngest pulled, or how the eldest of the group was always pushing his buttons. Ruby got more of the impression that Raph just had a lot of buttons, but declined to comment as he ranted for a solid ten minutes, pacing back and forth on the shadowed side of the ledge like a spitting cat.

She learned that he and his siblings had been raised by his father, someone who Ruby got the impression that Raphael had an immense respect for. She could sympathize; being one of three kids raised by a single mom, she understood how much effort and dedication it took. He had apparently also been homeschooled by this father, which was damn impressive, considering that the guy had _four_ sons to both raise _and_ teach.

There were a lot of things he wouldn't tell her; what his family did, where they lived, what their names were and how old they were. Personal things, Ruby realized, little facts that might identify them. Were they celebrities or criminals? Was he simply secretive, or actually hiding something?

She supposed that it didn't matter. Whatever the reason he didn't want her to know about his family, she didn't get any bad vibes from him. Maybe she was wrong and he was part of a gang of serial killers, maybe she wasn't, but either way she wanted to enjoy their nighttime visits for as long as she could. Alone time was something that Ruby craved, especially after a long day at the shelter, but it had been a while since she'd made a friend who could simply _be_. Raphael was not one of the myriad people she found it was tiring to interact with, and therefor she enjoyed spending her downtime with him.

The only thing that really gave Ruby a clue about why Raph was so secretive happened late in December, just a few days after Christmas. Ruby – wrapped in a whole assortment of the knit winter-wear that Raphael kept giving her – had been walking home from the subway when she'd been pulled behind some scaffolding and into an alley. She'd barely had time to scream before a tennis shoe landed in her face, and when she stumbled to the ground a hand was rifling through her pants pockets, another through her poncho. She threw her purse as hard as she could, catching somebody on the shoulder, and it earned her a glancing kick to the thigh. The second assailant started palming through her bag, and then a massive… _something_ had landed hard on the concrete and sent the guy flying into the wall. The other was swiftly removed from Ruby's side and given similar treatment, although with a little more ass-kicking, from what Ruby could tell in the darkness. The new guy let out a loud _HA_ and picked Ruby up with one arm. She'd watched him with a bleeding nose and dirt-crusted eyes as he retrieved her bag and pressed it into her chest.

"Here you go, dudette," he said. "You okay?"

His shadow-within-a-shadow was not particularly tall, but something about his bulk had reminded Ruby of Raphael. His hand had nearly swallowed her forearm, rough and strong, and when he moved she heard fabric swishing and the clatter of metal and plastic. For some reason, he'd seemed to be staring very intently at her.

When she'd opened her mouth to reply she remembered that she'd been kicked in it, but she tried to smile at him anyway.

"I… _shit_ , _ow,_ yeah, thank you – "

"Mikey! Come on!"

The newcomer disappeared as suddenly as he'd appeared before Ruby had even finished her sentence, and she barely saw his shape vanish over the top of the building before the _clang_ ing of the fire escape had even stopped its echo. She'd gone home, put an icepack on her face and leg, and waited for Raphael to show up. It had been one of the later nights, when he arrived just a little bit before she was ready to turn in, smelling of sweat and the city, exhilaration still riding in his voice.

The bleeding from her nose stopped just before he came, though Ruby was still spitting blood into a hand-towel.

"What the fuck happened to you?!"

She'd chosen to lean against the rooftop side of the AC unit, staring right into his shadow. Apparently he climbed right up the side of the wall, and Ruby silently evaluated her opinion of him being an XXXL-sized Spiderman.

"Got mugged," she said with a shrug. The slight thickness from her swollen lip kind of ruined it. "Somebody called _Mikey_ gave me a hand. Maybe you know him? Big, brawny, stayed in the shadows?"

The very silence around Raphael had echoed with a cringe and _oh shit._ They talked at length and with no small amount of hesitation, pauses, and redacted sentences, and that's how Ruby found out that Raphael was a vigilante. Part of a _group_ of vigilantes, no less, made up of him and his brothers.

It was better than serial killers, at least.

Ruby brought _Watchmen, The Avengers,_ and every single _Spiderman_ movie she could rent for them to watch the next night. Raphael was not amused.

* * *

The little thing in the 2014 film where Raph knows how to knit? That's my favorite thing. Bigassmagnet on tumblr headcanoned that he knits April an entire winter wardrobe, and I'm totally glomming on that idea. Got to do _something_ during all those hours in the Hashi. I also loved how absolutely horrible at lying everybody but Donnie was.

I've never read any Pat Conroy books (don't tell anyone. I think the whole of coastal South Carolina would gang up on me). _But_ I have had pralines from Savannah and Charleston and they are the best things EVER, it's just maple syrup and pecans but it's fantastic. And people get real serious about their sweet tea down south. It's almost more popular than beer, which is really saying something.

I was so insulted the other day. I was reading this book and then it… _ended_. Like an _asshole._ SAME thing with 'Kill Bill', I rented the first movie and then it ended on a massive cliffhanger and I was muttering ' _FUCK Quentin Tarantino'_ for five minutes.

I think the brothers are canonically about seventeen by the 2016 film, but I have so much difficulty in believing that so I'm just making everybody twenty or twenty-one or so for this fic. The 2014 film is the hardest – you cannot convince me that those boys are _actually_ fifteen in that film, no matter what canon says. They _do_ feel a little younger in the sequel, but I'm still pushing them up to their twenties, because that's just how I see them. If you try to tell me that twenty-something men never act like that, then clearly you've never lived in a college dorm.

My shelter doesn't actually deal with much more than cats or dogs. We've gotten in guinea pigs, horses, a snake, and one emu, but my town really isn't a big one for exotic animals. I'm actually basing some of Ruby's tasks and experiences on the animals seen in the movie _The Secret Life of Pets_ , which takes place in New York. There were lizards, birds, rodents, snakes, every kind of dog or cat, etc.

Black cats are the least likely to be adopted, even though they really are the best cats ever. As a person who works with animals it is my professional opinion that black cats are awesome. So the next time you want a cat, please consider getting a black cat. If you're worried about them being bad luck, remember that a black cat loving you is _good_ luck.

The movies Ruby brings all center in New York, so that's why she didn't bring _Batman_ as well.


	5. Chapter 5

"Can you fix her?"  
Ruby had heard those words from more than one hopeful tech, but she never expected her friend to start bringing her half-dead animals and say the same thing. Raphael had been interested in her veterinary career ever since he had smelled the cleaner they used and asked what it was for. Apparently he and his youngest brother were big animal lovers; they'd find birds and rats and kittens when they were kids, but their father was very strict about his 'no-pets' rule.

The first thing Raphael brought her was a pigeon with a chewed-off wing, which Ruby had to take to the shelter at ten o'clock at night and put down. The next thing was a box full of newspaper and baby mice, and then another pigeon with a mangled foot, and now a wet and nearly bloodless kitten.

Ruby dropped down from the ledge and moved around the AC unit to look at it in better light. It was orange, female, severely dehydrated and so flea-bitten that it was dying of anemia. The poor thing was too weak to even hiss at her properly. Honestly, it didn't look hopeful, but…

Ruby re-wrapped the kitten in its towel and picked up her phone.

"I've got some stuff in my apartment," she said. "I'll take her down there."

Raphael was silent, and Ruby realized that he was waiting for either an invitation or a dismissal. She weighed her options:

One, let her vigilante friend who she'd never seen into her apartment, or,

Two, tell him thanks for the kitten and say goodnight.

Her mother would probably whoop her ass for letting a strange man into her apartment, but shadows aside, Raphael simply didn't feel like a stranger, so Ruby stood up, dusted herself off, and told him she'd leave the window open if he wanted to come in.

She left the roof before he replied, bundling the cold kitten inside the poncho he'd made her as she went down several flights of stairs and entered her apartment. The living-room window wasn't used to being opened and Ruby had to brace her shoulder against it just to get it to budge, but eventually she got it open, the late January air immediately taking a bite out of her heating bill.

She didn't turn on any lights but the ones in the kitchen, and she'd given the kitten a warm bath and some formula before a massive creaking and banging, accompanied by several panicked curses, alerted her to Raphael's presence.

"That…fire escape is total crap," he said from the other room, sounding out of breath.

"Oh…yeah…sorry, I forgot that you're a big guy," said Ruby, cringing a bit. "It does need some servicing."

"Needs a _junkyard,_ " Raph muttered. She heard him standing in the kitchen doorway and turned around until he was at her nine o'clock, a large, dark shape just outside of the kitchen's task lights.

"She gonna be okay," he asked. Ruby _hmm_ ed, putting a needle onto a syringe and drawing up some sub-q fluids.

"Woah, what're you doin' with _that_?"  
"It's just fluids," Ruby said, quickly pinching the flesh behind the kitten's neck and emptying the syringe. It was too weak to do more than flinch, and she wondered if she should just take it to the clinic.

"It's so bad I don't think there's much I can do. I've gotten the fleas off of her, given her fluids, nutrients, formula, and I'll put her on a heating pad, but she may not respond to anything. See how anemic she is? Look at her gums."

The shadow shifted enough that she could see, in her peripheral vision, vague shapes and outlines, but she kept her eyes away as she stuck a rice-warmy into the microwave and wrapped the kitten in a fluffy dishtowel.

"If she starts gasping or looking pained, I'm taking her in," Ruby said, tilting her head halfway to the doorway. Raphael blew out a heavy breath.

"Yeah, I don't…I don't want her to suffer," he muttered. Ruby nodded as she tucked the warmy into the kitten's towel and walked around the kitchen counter. Raphael faded back into the shadow when she approached the doorway. She could see the bare edges of him against the windows, tall and broad, but she simply held out the kitten until he took it and then turned back to the kitchen to make more formula. She kept her back to the doorway, warming up water and a little bowl of mushy wet food, and heard hesitant footsteps behind her. She would have been surprised at their softness, but she'd learned very quickly how quiet he could be.

Her back was still turned when she heard the creaking of leather less than a foot behind her. Ruby filled a syringe with her formula/wet food/nutrient paste mixture and reached behind her for the kitten.

He was a lot taller than she had expected or guessed him to be: the barest edge of a breath ruffled the top of her hair, so he was at least a head taller than she was. He smelled a little strange; sweat mostly, but also water and metal, leather and the pollution that draped over the city like a veil. He was in the light now, out of the shadows; if she just turned around…

She didn't turn around. She fed the kitten until it refused anything more, wrapped it up again, and held it against her chest. Raphael was nothing more than a silent presence at her back. The task lights made a faint buzzing sound, and the city outside the windows was a constant presence, but the quiet was otherwise complete, neither of them saying a word.

If she turned around, she would see her friend. He'd taken that risk when he'd stepped into the kitchen. All she would have to do was just turn her head, even a little bit…he was trusting her to see.

She'd be damned if she wasn't going to _deserve_ that trust.

* * *

Honestly, Raph wasn't sure how it had gotten to this point. He'd planned on bringing Ruby the kitten that Mikey found and secreted to him, she'd look at it and put it in her apartment to bring to work the next morning, and then maybe they would read a while and share a few new songs he'd heard, just like the other times he'd brought her an animal. He hadn't expected the kitten to be so sick.

He hadn't expected her to invite him in, he hadn't expected to find himself standing on the edge of the light – he _certainly_ had not expected standing _in_ the light, just behind his friend, where she see so easily.

 _Why_ was this such a big deal? He'd had no problems showing himself to April, or Casey. He knew Ruby better than he'd known either of _them_ , but still he was damn near scared shitless. He'd never wanted her to see, he realized. Because _what if she freaked out?_ What if she pulled a Jones and started talking to him like he was some sort of alien, looking at him like he was a freakshow, like April had done, in those first few minutes?

 _What if she didn't care_

And _what if she did._

He watched over her shoulder as she syringe-fed Mikey's kitten, gently massaging its back and its head. He was ready to take the risk. If she screamed, if she shivered, if she pulled away in disgust, he was ready for it. He had to know.

The kitten had all that it would take, and Raph knew, by Ruby's stillness, that she was getting ready to move. He'd stand there and take it. They salvaged everything, from supplies to homes to people, and if his friend freaked out he'd salvage that too.

Ruby shook her hair out of her eyes, and then very, very slowly leaned back.

Her shoulders bumped first onto the belts on his front, then her back and the wild mess of her hair. She was so short the curls didn't even brush his chin, soft and wild on the bare skin above his plastron.

The kitten against her chest was falling asleep to the warm sock and Ruby's gentle hand, and she settled further against him. He could feel, very faintly, her heartbeat.

She didn't look up, and she didn't turn around.

He could still show her; put his hands out in front of them, wrap his arms around her, turn her around or step in front. He did not move.

They stayed, still and unseeing, until Ruby needed to heat up the sock again. Raph broke the moment, and without another glance at his friend's back leapt out of the window and into the night.

* * *

"Hey, Raph, is the kitten okay? What did she say?"

Mikey stood a little bit back, letting him kill another punching bag without getting in the way, even though Raphael was more going through the motions than genuinely enjoying it. He punched the bag harder, and harder, ignoring the shivery feeling in his chest as best as he could.

 _Why_ hadn't she…?

 _Hadn't she wanted to…?_

He pulled his punches, not wanting to replace another bag or sew this one up again.

 _He'd let her!_ He'd put his entire existence in her hands, his safety and even the safety of his family, and she'd…she didn't _do anything_. She _didn't take it._

"Hey, bro? You okay?"

What the fuck was he supposed to do with that? He'd prepared himself for every reaction because he'd assumed there would _be_ a reaction, but she hadn't turned around! What the hell was wrong with her?  
Raphael turned and kicked the bag, sending it swinging high into the air only to meet the heel of his palm and the other fist.

What was she, stupid? Why didn't she take the opportunity? He'd given it to her, he'd _let her_. Did she just not want to know? Was that somehow _better_ for her, so that he was some faceless shadow instead of a real person? So she wouldn't see anything that she didn't want to see? Was she _afraid_ of him? Of knowing?  
Then why had she invited him in her apartment?

He had half a mind to march back over there and demand an explanation from her, but that would involve breaking into her apartment and waking her up, and he'd build too much trust into this to scare her like that, not for some stupid answer…

A sprinkle of sand slid onto the floor with the next punch; he wasn't just going through the motions now. There was a difference between trusting him enough to be willing to _not know_ , and still being friends with him after waking her up at one in the morning and yelling _what the fuck is up with you!_ at her face.

Mikey had to catch the bag before it smacked against the wall, and Raphael stepped away, shaking and rolling his shoulders until the tension left them and the urge to make his knuckles sting against the wall faded. His youngest brother peered along the top of the breaking bag.

"It didn't go so well, huh?"  
Raph looked at him, the blue eyes wide with something miserable and accepting. Mikey thought something bad had happened. Raph wondered when Michelangelo had started to assume the worst instead of hoping for the best of things.

"Kitten's fine, Mikey," he muttered, feeling uncomfortable with the shadows in his brother's usually sunny eyes. They lit up again, as quickly as ever, quick enough that he wondered if he had just been imagining things.

"So what happened with you and your girl, then? You guys have a fight or something?"

Raphael ignored the 'your girl' comment and gave a halfhearted nudge to the abused bag, shaking his head.

"Nah," he said. "She just…"

Raph had Mikey's undivided attention, and he suddenly wondered if _Mikey_ was living vicariously through _him_. April's presence was always a treat, and Casey and Vern were entertaining diversions, but outside of his brothers Mikey had never had a real friend, not like Raphael had suddenly found himself acquiring. Maybe that was why Mikey didn't tell Leo or Donnie about where Raph really went.

"She didn't look," he said quietly. "I gave her the damn opportunity and she _didn't take it_ , and I don't know what the fuck's _wrong with her_ – "

"Aw, that's sweet," Mikey cooed. Raph made a face at him, but he wasn't teasing. Mikey draped his arms over the bag, swaying back and forth with a little smile on his face.

"How the hell is that 'sweet'?"  
"She knows _something's_ a big secret, bro. She's just letting you keep it."

* * *

Our shelter is not a medical clinic; we only have a bare minimum of stuff for keeping an animal healthy and can only medicate for the bare basics - even for something as basic as a URI we still get a vet's opinion on. I'd love to work in a veterinary clinic someday, where I could dress wounds and treat illnesses and do blood tests and stuff.

Fleas are the absolute worst, I hate them. On something like a small kitten they can actually be deadly, and I've washed many an unhappy cat or kitten that had over a hundred of the little suckers on them. They actually can cause anemia, since they drink blood, and until you get the fuckers off it's difficult to get the animal healthy again.

A rice-warmy is just a sock filled with raw rice and stuck in the microwave for a minute or so - voila, redneck heating pad. It actually stays warm for a couple hours, but let's pretend that it only lasts for thirty minutes or so in here, otherwise both Ruby and Raph would have been standing rather uncomfortably for quite a long time.

I just wanted to add a little tension and platonic intimacy here. The kitchen scene was _incredibly_ fun to write. They'll meet face-to-face, just not in this chapter. I wanted to establish a little more trust between them.

I don't think the Mikey is the type to truly hate anybody or really hold a grudge, but being such a hopeful beam of sunshine and then having everything crushed by a bunch of people looking at you like you're the worst thing in the world and calling you and your family monsters has to be utterly devastating, especially for someone so eager to make friends, even with people trying to hurt you (supporting Beebop's Mohawk and power of flight, yo.) So Mikey's still our beautiful little sinnamon roll, too pure for this world, but between Sachs and the shitshower at the police headquarters some of that sunshine must have dimmed a little.

Raph does not approve.


	6. Chapter 6

I own nothing but Ruby.

* * *

Ruby refused to allow him to feed the kitten on the edge of the rooftop, so Raphael had to stay in the half-shadow that he used when they watched a movie on her laptop. It was directly in Ruby's line of sight, from where she sat against the air conditioner, but Raph wasn't worried; she put her book up directly in front of her face in order to resist the temptation to look at him.

There was actually a bit of fun in it, now that some of the danger had faded away. He trusted her enough to know, and she trusted him enough _not_ to know, and it had become a bit of a game, letting her _almost_ see him. She knew that he was teasing her, and so she stubbornly refused to look, even when he stood directly behind her or sat right by her side. She'd even _leaned_ on him once, but still, she wouldn't look. Neither of them talked about it. Raph was both annoyed and extremely grateful.

The kitten was progressing well; apparently the first hours had been touch-and-go, what with the blood-loss and the dehydration, but after two sleepless nights Ruby managed to pull it through. Raph wasn't sure what he would have told Mikey if it hadn't survived; he'd already said that it was fine, and Mikey _always_ took the loss of one of their half-pets hard.

Feeding it now was his job, at least whenever they had their meetings. Raph explained that he couldn't take it home, but Ruby insisted that it was _his_ damn kitten, so he could at least contribute to its care and upkeep. Mikey spent two hours and over a hundred dollars online for kitten toys and treats and Raph spent three hours putting together a little cat-bed, with input and suggestions from Mikey, who took a lot more interest in the craft but couldn't sew nearly as well as Raphael. By that time Donnie knew at the very least that they had a cat stashed _somewhere_ , but as long as they didn't bring it into the actual _lair_ he didn't tell Leo or Sensei.

Honestly, Raph was more of a dog person, but his little brother was super-invested in every detail of the kitten's progress and Raph didn't want to be the guy who put a few more shadows in his brother's eyes, so he dutifully took the tiny baby bottle when Ruby offered it and fed the little thing during their three-night marathon of every single _Terminator_ movie.

One thing that Raph had not expected was how hard it was to keep everything a secret. The further he and Ruby got into their friendship, the more he felt guilty for not telling his family. Was he supposed to hide this forever? Every time Leo asked how 'Casey' was doing, Raphael had to lie, and while he and Leo didn't always see eye to eye lying to his brother on a daily basis was not something that he enjoyed.

The fact that _Mikey_ had to hide it too made him feel even worse. With how open Mikey was about everything, nobody ever expected him to keep something a secret. It made lying surprisingly easy in spite of how much Mikey sucked at it, but it grated against his nature and Raph knew it. The longer he kept things secret, the more uncomfortable Mikey became. He'd been fine with the nature of things in the beginning, but hiding was not something that Mikey was built for, especially not hiding from his family. Simply for the sake of his youngest brother, Raph didn't know how long he could keep things close to the chest.

And to make things worse, April had finally gotten around to her interrogation. Though she wasn't quite the mystical _hogosha_ Splinter had made her out to be, there was still an element of reverence whenever she showed up, and Raph had to remember that although she walked like a model and was nothing more than a tv personality to the city above, she'd stabbed Shredder in the back and regularly spied for Donnie, so the reverence also had a lining of my-big-sister's-a-badass fear. April could tell he was lying before he'd even opened his mouth, and the last time he'd lied to her he'd gotten her arrested.

So instead he dodged some questions and simply refused to answer the others. He knew that if he told April she'd probably tell Splinter or Donnie, simply out of precaution, which made Raph feel even _guiltier_ because he _knew_ that he should have told them at the beginning.

He avoided April for the next two weeks, even when she came down into the lair. The stress of hiding was finally hitting him, and he itched even more to get it all over with, to show his friend who exactly she was dealing with and face the inevitable explosions that would come with telling the others exactly what he was getting up to when he said he was hanging out with Jones.

And he _couldn't. Fucking. Do it._

Something in him couldn't decide whether he _wanted_ to know how Ruby'd react to her book-club-buddy being a _giant fucking turtle_ and whether he didn't want to ever find out, just in case she freaked. It was extremely frustrating, because he'd gone through exactly the same thing when he'd given her the chance in her kitchen, and now it was popping up every single night, every time they met up and Raph couldn't bring himself to truly step out of the shadow. The fact that Ruby didn't even _try_ to peek, even though he would have let her, didn't help.

They'd gotten into it one night, Raph spewing out something rude and confrontational. Ruby used her 'customer service' voice on him, sounding perfectly at ease even though he could see her clenching her fists. She'd asked him, all polite, why he was worrying, why he didn't just step into the light and get it over with, why he doubted her when she said that she wouldn't react badly. It was harder because he knew that she was in the right. She forgave him for venting at her, but that night and the night following had been tenser than even their first meetings.

Eventually everything came to a head: the lying and the avoiding and the hiding, and when it all snapped…

* * *

Ruby had forgotten, amid the movies and book-talk and hand-knit winterwear, that Raphael was actually a dick. He was kind of like that one kid at a pool party who shoved the other kids into the water because _he_ was afraid of swimming; horrible at dealing with his own emotions but wonderful at deflecting them onto other people.

After their argument it seemed to her like he couldn't decide whether to avoid her or stay closer; their meetings were shorter and more abrupt, but he shared more music, talked more, moved closer to her. Ruby didn't know if she wanted to shove him off the roof or give him a hug. The highlight of the fight had been when she, delicately and without so many words, had called him a coward. He'd jumped up and stood right in front of her then, just around the darker corner of the AC unit. The light from the roof's one light ruined Ruby's night vision enough that she couldn't make out more than his general shape, but all either of them had to do was move a step forward.

Ruby had to admit then that if Raph was a coward, then so was she, because neither of them moved.

He still came nearly every evening, even if he only stayed long enough to feed the kitten she was still housing. Eventually they fell back into their routine, but it felt like they had to start all over again. Ruby wondered how long it would be until the next fight, and the next reset, until one of them cracked.

She hadn't bet that it would be him, though. And definitely not so soon.

* * *

Ruby appreciated, despite his other faults, that Raph wasn't enough of an ass that he'd pull someone's earbuds out to talk to them. Three weeks after their fight, she felt a tapping on her shoulder and paused her phone, looking up from her book.

"Got a song," he grumbled. Ruby pulled down her earphones and started to reach a hand into the shadow for his, but he beat her to it.

The light wasn't fantastic on the ledge of the roof, dim enough that Ruby had to use her flashlight app to read, but she could see very clearly a huge hand reaching out of the shadows to hang above her knee, the wires dangling loosely from his fingers.

The light wasn't dim enough to hide that there were only _three_ of them, nor how enormous the hand was, nor how rough the skin. The wrist disappeared into the shadows, but even so she could see the muscles corded throughout the limb.

Ruby silently took the earbuds and put them on.

The song was ' _I'll Be There_ ' by the Jackson 5, which was the probably the sappiest thing Raphael had ever done in his life. Ruby didn't even have the heart to tease him about it, because she was busy trying not to cry.

They didn't talk for the rest of the evening, and he didn't come into the light again. But he let Ruby lean on him, and when her coworkers asked her the next day why she was in such a good mood, she only grinned and shook her head.

* * *

NOT YET. LET ME SAVOR SOME OF THIS TENSION.

While I like the Raph/Casey dynamic in most of the TMNT universes, I didn't really feel a whole lot of connection between them in the 2016 film. Actually, this version of Casey kind of sucked. I'll admit that he's nowhere near my favorite character but even _I_ could cringe at the characterization here. Maybe if Casey cuts loose a little bit and loses some of the eager "Imma be a detective someday!" attitude and never says 'bring them to justice!' again, he and Raph will have a bit more of a connection. He's more of a boyscout with anger issues in this version.

My favorite line from the first season of the 2012 show is when the bros are watching Dexter Boxman try rather pathetically to break into a place, and Mikey says he doesn't know whether to beat him up or buy him an ice-cream cone.

April's definitely the big sister, but although big sisters are comforting, they're also scary sometimes. April's a lot tougher than she's often given credit for, and I think that Raphael would respect her being down for trouble. I just connected the 'stabbing Shredder with Raph's sai' from the 2014 film with 'pulling Raph's sai on the Foot Clan' from the 1990 film, I hadn't noticed that little shout-out until writing this chapter. Although I totally ship Raphril, this isn't one of those fics. Here, she's just the big sis.

I hadn't intended to write a chapter with so little dialogue, but…

The hand scene was one I've had on my mind for quite some time, and although I never was sure how to write it, I'm pleased with how it turned out.

The song would have been 'Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word' but I just can't see Raphael listening the Joe Cocker. Ruby is having too much of a 'He showed me! He showed me!' freakout to have a 'three fingers wtf' freakout.


	7. Chapter 7

I own nothing but Ruby.

* * *

The kitten was doing well enough that Raph could take it home and give it back to Mikey, and Raph and Ruby spent the next four days eating the various pies and muffins that Mikey made her. They didn't talk about what had happened; Ruby, true to form, didn't ask Raph any questions.

Splinter was less than enthusiastic about having a pet in the lair, but now that the brothers were old enough to take care of it themselves, he eventually agreed to keep it. The kitten promptly took over the lair, scratching up Leo's sheets, knocking everything off of the kitchen table, and laying on Donnie's lap when he sat at his computer bank. Raph thought that Splinter wouldn't want to have anything to do with her, but one morning he noticed the kitten curled up amid the candles while Splinter was meditating.

Mikey was ecstatic. He promptly set up over a dozen cat-beds tucked away in little nooks and called the cat 'Klunk' after it knocked the pepper shaker over for the sixth time in two days. He was terrified of the kitten falling into the river, and Raph woke up early one morning to find Mikey and an extremely unhappy Klunk wading through the river, making sure that the little thing knew how to swim.

Klunk slept with Leo for the next week, until Donnie built Mikey a laser pointer.

April adored the little cat, but Casey hated it. The kitten bit him and left three long scratches on his ridiculous hockey mask the next time he visited, and he swore the thing was out to get him. Mikey just insisted that Klunk had good taste.

The end of March and beginning of April ran by in a flurry of activity, what with their new addition and the news that Baxter Stockman had suddenly vanished. Donnie had found out where the Foot was taking Stockman before they even reached Tokyo, but he disappeared as suddenly as if something had reached out of the air and snatched him up.

Which was _exactly_ what Donnie believed happened, because he found signatures of more inter-dimensional portal residue. Krang had Baxter Stockman.

Foot activity went up a little after that and between patrol and a series of break-ins by some new idiots calling themselves the Purple Dragons, visits with Ruby got shorter and shorter. In all honesty, though, Raph needed some time to think.

Although she hadn't freaked out when he'd showed her his hand she was probably thinking more along the lines of 'birth defect' than 'giant mutant turtle'. They'd just crossed a line and Raphael wasn't sure how much more he wanted to go over. At the same time that he was impatient to get everything over with, all those stupid _what ifs_ kept punching him in the face. Again.

So they kept to their own parts of the roof ledge, and Raph had plenty to think about while he was out on patrol.

Leo had wanted to shake things up a bit, so Raph and Donnie were on a team again while Leo and Mikey did their rounds together. It was supposed to help them 'develop as a team and understand each other's strengths and weaknesses', so they were paired up by who had the most different fighting styles, but Raph figured that Leo just appreciated Mikey's willingness to work with the police, while Raph and Donnie preferred to keep to themselves. But the fighting-styles thing had a point: Donnie worked with efficient, calculated strikes while Raph tended to bulldoze directly into the fray, and while this meant that Raph finished his fights the fastest, it was also the reason that he had more scar tissue than the rest of his brothers put together, while Donatello had the least. Donnie, actually, was pretty fun to work with and Raph wondered why they hadn't broken up the 'A-team' and 'B-team' thing earlier. His younger brother was more of a leader than he was, but he wasn't snooty about it like Leo, and was the saltiest little shit when he got riled up.

Leo, apparently, had a hard time keeping up with both Mikey's moves and his mouth, but as the training exercise went on he started to learn a little spontaneity, and Mikey began to chill out a bit. Raph actually caught him meditating with Master Splinter one evening; his form wasn't right, and Klunk was in his lap, and he'd fallen asleep, but the effort still stood. Splinter had looked more amused than annoyed, anyway.

Working so closely with Donnie had one disadvantage, though:

"I know you're not hanging out with Casey."

He was too smart for his own good.

"But honestly, Raph, did you think I'd believe that Mikey would actually bake Casey a _pie?_ Mikey only does pies as a _thank you_ and he likes to shit on Jones way too much to actually go into that effort. So there has to be something else. April, maybe?"  
Donnie paused on the edge of the rooftop, peering thickly at Raph through his homemade specs.

"But why would you hide hanging out with April," he said. "And Mikey wouldn't _lie_ about that."

"'S none of your business," Raph growled, instantly realizing that it was a mistake. He could have lied, again, maybe said that it was one of their new cop buddies, but he'd gotten defensive, and defensive meant that he _really_ had something to hide.

Stuck on the edge of a roof with his smartest brother, Raph was at a crossroads: either tell Donnie directly, or avoid the question and have him find out the same way Mikey did.

"C'mon," he muttered, jumping from the rooftop onto the fire escape of the next building over. Mikey was going to _kill him_ for not getting to meet Ruby first.

"Raph, we're not done-"  
"I got somebody I want you to meet," he interrupted. He hurled up the fire escape before he could hear Donnie's reply.

Raphael was just clearing the edge of the fire escape when the walkie-talkie on his shoulder went off. Donnie came up behind him and watched curiously as he answered the call from Mikey.

" _What?"_  
"Dude, dude, you have to get over here – "

"Mikey, what – "

"Bro, your girl's building's on fire!"

Raphael heard a crunch and a sharp yell, tiny flickers of pain in his right hand, but he couldn't connect them to anything. Something grey filtered through his eyes, something cold and dull that dug through his chest, until an electric fire shook his bones and he ran over the roof, leaping to the building beside it, pelting across the city at full-force. He was aware of Donnie yelling at him, running beside him, but his words were washed out by the steady stream of _get to Ruby Ruby's in danger get to Ruby_. In less than ten minutes he was skidding on the concrete of the building he used to scope out her rooftop from, a violent orange blaze illuminating the apartment building's windows. In the back of his mind, he noted that there were no fire alarms going off.

"Raph!"

Something clicked and he took a running start, jumping onto the roof. He sped past their AC unit and jerked the roof-access door off its hinges, pelting down the stairs and into…nothing. The fire hadn't reached the top floors yet. He could feel a warning smell in the air, however, and he ran down the hallway, pounding on every door he passed.

 _Why aren't the fire alarms going off_ , he thought suddenly, aware of the ominous, deceiving quiet. Leonardo met him just as he started down the staircase.

"Raph! There's no alarms – I don't think most of the residents know they're in danger," he said in a rush, pushing past Raphael to pound his fists on the apartment doors.

"THE BUILDING IS ON FIRE," he yelled, kicking the doors open and yelling directly into the apartments. "YOU HAVE TO EVACUATE _NOW_!"

 _That_ was when the lights went out; the smell of smoke trickled up the stairwell as people started to run into the hallway.

"Raph-"  
"I gotta go," he said, jumping down the stairs four at a time. It was evident that Leo and Mikey had already hit some of the floors below: doors were wide open, people were screaming from below, a few stragglers ran past him without even looking at him. The fire hadn't hit above the eighth floor, he guessed, but it was moving fast. Distantly he noticed his brothers moving through the smoke and the dark and eventually the gritty beams of firefighter's flashlights, Donatello directing people toward fire escapes, Leo herding the crowds around patches of flame, Mikey leading firefighters to groups of people, but he kept going until he reached the tenth floor. He wasn't sure which apartment was Ruby's, but he knew it was on the east, the left side of the hallway. Most of the doors were open, and Raph put his fists through the ones that weren't, shouting in the dark at confused residents until they got onto the fire escapes. None of them were Ruby, _maybe she got out already, maybe she wasn't home_ …

A terrified-looking couple pushed past him as he broke through the second-to-last closed door, and the smell of disinfectant over a faint whiff of cat nearly made his heart pound in both fear and relief. He half-sprinted through the apartment, his night vision useless in his panic, bumping into furniture and doorframes until he found the bedroom, hoping, hoping that she wouldn't be there –

\- just before a baseball bat splintered across his plastron.

* * *

Ruby's hands were shaking so hard she thought she'd nearly drop the bat, but she was so wired up that whoever was breaking into her apartment was going to get a _fucking_ nasty surprise.

The orange glow outside muddled with the noise of distant screams and the creaking of the fire escape in her half-asleep state, and being startled awake hadn't helped the confusion, but when the intruder burst into her bedroom she swung as hard as she could, yelling with the effort.

The bat broke in her hands.

" _Fucking –_ Ruby _!"_

The jarring pain in her arms and the familiar voice jolted her wide awake.

" _Raph?_ "

Huge hands grabbed at her in the darkness, dragging her out the door and into the living room.

"The building's on fire, you gotta come with me – "

"How did you – I don't hear any alarms, there's – "  
"The alarms aren't going off, but the building's on _fire_ , you gotta _move!"_

Ruby twisted, ducking out of his hands and sprinting back over to her bedroom just as she heard him break open the living room window.

" _Ruby!"  
_ She ignored him and pulled her emergency backpack from under the bed, sliding into a pair of flip-flops and grabbing her bag from the chest as she ran out of the bedroom.

"Let's go," Raphael said, his too-big silhouette climbing through the broken window and onto the fire escape.

"Wait, Raph, it's not – "

The fire escape _CREAKED_ and banged; a few people screamed from outside, and Raphael hastily clamored back inside. "Fucking _shit_. Come on!"

He took her arm again and pulled her out of the apartment; the front door was hanging off of one hinge, and she saw orange flickering through the frame, illuminating Raphael and his huge, strange shape. The end of the hallway was ablaze and crumbling; Ruby had never seen a fire so big, and terror grabbed at her through the rush and the panic. They ran down the other end of the hall, toward the staircase; flames danced through a doorway and Raph pushed himself between her and the fire, a hulking mass in orange and sharp shadow, but the heat still seared at her arm, her face; it dried her eyes and the smoke made her cough, but they were running up and up onto the roof, and then still running.

"Raph-"

"I gotcha, just hold on."

 _We're gonna jump, we're gonna jump, we're gonna - - -_

 _\- - - jump - -_ -

\- - - and they jumped. The distance was too far for Ruby but there was no pulling away from Raphael's grip, and they landed on the adjacent rooftop, she with a jolt and a painful skid that crashed her into Raph's side. She stayed there until she could breathe again, and then slowly turned around. The fire was up above her floor now, the flames too bright to look at, waving out of burst windows like kids on a school bus, the crackle and the sirens on the street mocking and jarring.

"Raph!"

Behind her she heard him move, heavy footsteps coming thundering toward them, the smell of seared leather and sweat nudging at her smoke-filled nose.

"What the hell was that?"  
"What were you _doing_ – "

"Raph, who…?"

Ruby was aware of an angrily whispered conversation, but she didn't turn around. Her backpack slid from her shoulders and she let it fall. Her home was burning before her, and she didn't want to see anything else.

" _What the hell were you thinking, bringing her up here – "_

" _The fire escape was shit, I wasn't sending her down that thing – "_

" _So you brought her_ with _you? Raph, that was_ extremely _irresponsible – "_

" _I know her, alright?"_

There was silence, nothing but the crackle of fire and people yelling on the street below. Now that she was settling down, she could feel the grime, the sweat, the sting of a burn on her arm and the ache of exertion in her legs and abdomen.

" _What do you mean, you know her?"_

" _Raph – "_

" _She's a friend, Leo."_

" _She's a friend? How long have you known thi – "  
"Guys, do we really have to do this _here?"

The group fell silent, and Ruby knew they were looking at her. Quiet footsteps trudged closer and she felt herself shaking, something in her mind completely empty as she watched her home burn.

"You can stay with us, if you want," Raph said, just behind her. The words felt like water, slipping over her shoulders and evaporating.

" _Raph – "_

"She can _stay with us,"_ he said forcefully. They stayed in silence for several minutes, and she knew he was waiting for a reply, but she didn't feel like speaking.

Behind her, Raph awkwardly cleared his throat. She felt him bend down close to her head, and then he haltingly hummed a few short notes.

The song choice was entirely appropriate, and the sudden familiarity and reminder of their routine broke her out of her funk.

"' _House on fire,'"_ Ruby muttered. " _'Leave it all behind you.'_ Yeah… _"_

She sighed, and something seemed to fall from her. She didn't want to watch anymore. Her backpack nudged against her ankle and she put it back on.

"No use in standing here," she said, turning around and walking past him. "Come on."

Her fingers brushed at his wrist – _hard skin, rough, almost_ _scaly_ \- and he followed after her. The three others were all big and brawny, soft edges of firelight and grey-green shadow; they pulled back to allow her room. She didn't look at them, following the medium-sized one as he led her to the other side of the building and down the fire escape on its side. The alleyway they took her to was quiet, sheltered from the noise and excitement in the other street. Nobody spoke. The smallest shadow bent down and lifted a manhole cover, pausing to look at her questioningly. In the dim light of a streetlamp she could see his face: round, masked; flat and inhuman. The edge of an oval shell was illuminated, the same shape she had caught glimpses of as Raphael pulled her down the burning hallway. She understood why Raph had hesitated to let her see him. She understood why they were going underground.

One of the others jumped in before her and she tossed her backpack down to him. The little one gave her a tiny smile and Ruby returned it before looking over at the bulkiest silhouette.

"This is getting into creepy-murder-mystery territory, you know," she whispered. Raph took the tease and gave her a gentle shove.

"Don't think you can afford the Hilton right now."

Ruby shoved him back and gingerly climbed into the hole.

"Shut up."

The first turtle down carefully directed her around the dark tunnel, helping her put on her backpack as the other three followed. Raphael went last, looking cautiously around the alleyway before he pulled the cover over the manhole and shuttered them into darkness.

* * *

The song is _Step Out_ , by Jose Gonzales, one of my favorites. Ruby actually gets the lyrics wrong, like I did until I checked them out for this fic. It's actually 'heart on fire', not 'house'. I got it wrong for years, but hey, it fits the story.

This was the chapter that inspired the whole fic. I'd be going through it during work, hashing out the details and lines. It's a little harder to write it when you're used to seeing it like a movie in your head, but this was still one of the chapters that more or less wrote themselves. I was looking the most forward to writing this one.

I'm going to say that Splinter's 'no pets' rule was less a dislike of pets and more _'please god don't make me have to take care of anything else on top of four rambunctious kids_ '. The boys are old and responsible enough to take care of a pet without Splinter having to go behind them now, so I think he'd ease up on it as long as they know that _they're_ responsible for the animal's upkeep, not him.

I really wished they hadn't frozen Shredder, because I really wanted him and Krang to have their hate/love/hate relationship that they had in the '87 series. Krang and Baxter Stockman is not nearly as fun, but it's a good way for me to bring about the arrival of, perhaps, some villains as well as my favorite character: Leatherhead. What do you all think?

And I'm sorry, but I just can't get the image of Leonardo kicking open a door and screaming 'THE BUILDING IS ON FIYAH!' out of my head.


	8. Chapter 8

The stink would have been absolutely unbelievable for anyone who had never smelled a dog quarantine room filled with puppies. Puppies, despite their cuteness, where some of the nastiest little shits on the _planet_. _A_ dmittedly, Ruby had never waded through puppy crap in flip-flops, but at least human waste and refuse didn't smell like _coccidia._

"We need to let Sensei know," said the turtle – actual _turtle –_ to her left. There was a slight glow coming from various devices and instruments on the tallest one, and an illuminated…was that a _hologram?..._ suddenly shone in the darkness.

"Hello, Master Splinter?"  
 _Odd name,_ Ruby thought. _And what is the_ sensei _thing about?_

"Yes, we-we're okay, it's just – "

The tall one glanced back at Ruby and began speaking rapidly in Japanese. Ruby felt a hint of insult, but she knew this wasn't a regular situation. Raphael hadn't told his brothersabout her, and hadn't told her much about _them_ , so she could forgive them about being wary of her. She – five-foot-three, four-eyed, and out of shape – was dangerous to them.

Ruby saw the shadow that was Raphael reach forward and smack the tall turtle on his shell, making several instruments quiver.

"We're taking her home, genius, she's gonna find out anyway. We can trust her."

'Genius' turned off the device with a quiet word, turning around to glare at Raph. He spoke again in Japanese.

"Quit that," Raphael said, before being interrupted again. He glanced at Ruby and she knew he wanted to do the same, to talk in the privacy of her lack of comprehension, but he stuck to English.

"Well, she ain't freaked out yet, has she?"

"Don, I think she's pretty cool with it," piped up the smallest one, nudging Ruby on the arm. The tall one watched them for a moment, and then turned away, continuing down the tunnel.

"Um, can I ask who 'Sensei' is?"

The little one started to answer before Raphael actually shoved a hand in his face.

"He's our…well, he's our _sensei_. He's like our teacher and father at the same time."

"I thought _sensei_ was like a martial arts thing," Ruby said.

"It is," said the little one, on the opposite side of the Ruby as Raphael. "We're _ninjas_ , girlfriend."

Ruby stopped dead, turning to Raph and shooting him with a scandalized look.

" _Ninja?_ You couldn't have mentioned _that_ in your eHarmony profile?"

Raphael spluttered and glared at her, as she knew he would. Even the tall one chuckled a bit, and the tension in the tunnel lessened.

" _Ninjas_ ," she scoffed. "Imma ask you to prove it tomorrow."

 _Which_ reminded her.

"'Scuse me, I need to call my supervisor."

Ruby pulled her phone out of her bag and punched in a speed-dial. The light from the screen illuminated the tall turtle's face as he turned towards her; she ignored the distrust there. The line picked up on the third ring.

"Imogen, hey, my apartment's burned down and I won't be in to work tomorrow," said Ruby quickly. "Possibly the next day."

"… _What?"_

Her supervisor sounded tired and groggy.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did I wake you up? Sorry. But I just wanted to tell you that I wouldn't be in to work tomorrow. I need to find a new apartment."

" _You apartment burned…are you okay?"_

Ruby's hands and shoulder stung, her limbs were trembling, and she was walking through the sewers with four giant turtles with shit up to her ankles and feeling more than a little shell-shocked.

"Yeah, I'm good," she said.

" _You sure? Do you need somewhere to stay?"_  
"I'm crashing with a friend," said Ruby, glancing up at the shadow she knew was Raphael. They passed under a sewer grate and sharp light illuminated the grin he struck at her.

"' _Kay…I'll, uh, I'll call someone to come in…"_  
" _You_ go back to sleep," Ruby said, " _I'll_ call someone. Okay, thanks Imogen, see you around. Wow, I did not know it was one in the morning."

The light from her phone glared painfully and she tried to dial without looking directly at it.

"You gonna be okay with work?"  
"Oh, it'll be fine," Ruby said, pushing the phone back against her ear. It took her two tries to wake up one of her coworkers, and nobody was happy about being called at 1 AM, but she got a cover for her shift for two days, maximum.

"Do you mind if I see that phone?"  
Ruby looked up at the tallest shadow, which loomed discomfitingly in the dark. She handed him her cell and he fiddled with it for a few seconds before slipping it back in her hands, offering no explanation.

"Thanks," Ruby murmured. "What's your name?"  
"Oh, er, Raph…didn't tell you?"  
Something dripped on her head and she shivered, skirting a little to the side and bumping into someone.

"Um, no," she said, not sure how much detail she could go into. Would they be relieved he hadn't talked about them, or annoyed?

The big shadow to her right shifted a little, his arm brushing against hers, as they turned a corner and stepped onto dry ground.

"Oh. Well, uh, I'm Donatello," the tall one said. "Well, Donnie, really, but…"  
"Another Renaissance artist?"  
"Yeah," he said with a quiet laugh. "There's a bit of a theme."  
"Is there a Leonardo here?"  
"Present," said the shadow behind her, the one who had been arguing with Raphael on the rooftop.

"Don't forget about the best and brightest," said the smallest turtle to her left. "Michelangelo here, but the ladies like to call me _Mikey_." He turned around, walking backward as he picked up her hand and bowed.

"Is that so, _Michelangelo,_ " Ruby teased. "I'm Ruby Richards. How do you do, good sir."

"Oh, madam –"

The faint light given off by Donatello's instruments showed him putting a hand to his chest.

"You wound me!"

Ruby giggled at his exaggerated swoon, the lightness of his voice clearing out some of the smoke and darkness inside her head, and a memory suddenly hit.

"Wait, we've already met, haven't we?" Michelangelo turned around the look at her, as did Donatello and Leonardo; Raphael stiffened a bit. "The alley, just before New Year's, I almost got mugged and…"

" _Yeah_ , dudette!" Mikey's grin was illuminated by the farthest efforts of a street lamp, as were the other's rather angry faces. "I was so stoked that I finally got to meet Raph's girl! I mean, yeah, probably could have been under better circumstances, but _still_!"

Leonardo grabbed Mikey by the arm and pulled him behind the group, holding him back for a minute as they all turned down another tunnel. Ruby ignored the 'Raph's girl' bit in favor of worrying. She really hoped she hadn't gotten the poor kid in trouble. Raph fell behind after a moment to join the other two, and Ruby and Donatello paused for several minutes until the others caught up with them.

Ruby took the opportunity to have an internal _WHAT THE FUCK_ moment. Her friend was a fucking _turtle!_ A vigilante, six-foot-five _turtle,_ with three turtle brothers. Were they aliens? Genetic experiments? Were they always turtles, or humans first? Donatello stood on the opposite side of the tunnel from Ruby and she couldn't see him very well from the light of his instruments, but she knew he was studying her as intently as she was studying him.

Eventually the others came back up the tunnel and they continued on their way. There was a distinct tension, but even though Leonardo huffed angrily Michelangelo still linked his arm with Ruby's and walked with a bounce.

They moved on, continuing onto mercifully dry ground, although Ruby distantly heard rushing water. Raph's hand on her back steered her around another corner and she noticed the stink of the sewers had faded. The tunnel they were in branched off, but they paused by a stretch of bare wall. Ruby was about to ask what they were waiting for when one of Donatello's instruments started blinking, and part of the wall seamlessly opened. The light coming from the round tunnel beyond was faint, but Ruby still had to squint, relying on Raphael to guide her until her eyes adjusted to the light. They emerged into a huge space, the absolute _coolest_ place her exhausted mind had ever seen. Raphael let her slip forward and she turned on shaking legs in a wide circle too see where they were. It was immense and dizzying, an abstract mishmash of color and light and shadow. There was too much to take in quickly, and she only had a very short time. Her circle turned her to face Raphael and the brothers who were stalking through the entrance behind him.

The light of the – she hesitated the think _lair_ , but _Batcave_ really wasn't fitting – was bright and multicolored, springing from all sorts of screens, lanterns, flow-lamps, and neon signs, soft enough to not be jarring on her eyes, and for the first time Ruby could see her friend. Actually _see_ her friend, not just from flashes of fire and dull streetlamps through sewer grates.

She'd certainly been right about one thing: he was stacked.

And green.

And very, very big. She'd call him a brick shit-house, but she didn't think they even made brick shit-houses _that_ big.

Actually all of them were huge and green and stacked. But Raph was downright intimidating. Ruby would probably be scared if she hadn't known he could cable knit.

She was sort of just standing there, looking him over. Of course he noticed her staring, a confrontational frown on his face; Ruby shook her head with a tired sigh. Gi _gantic_ turtles and an underground  moshpit were a little too much on top of losing her home and everything in it.

"I'll do this in the morning," Ruby muttered. "…It is the morning. I'll do this when I _wake up_. Is there a place I can collapse for a while?"

"You can take Raphael's room," called a voice from behind. "He and I will be talking for a _very_ long time tonight."

Ruby turned around to see who had spoken and was suddenly very glad she had several years of customer service under her belt, because although her mind was screaming _GIANT RAT GIANT RAT GIANT RAT,_ her face was saying _'_ Hi, how do you do?' He was wearing a brown robe and holding a little bonsai tree, which he put down to greet her. His clawed hand was rough and firm, his eyes black, shining pits, but when he welcomed her his voice was exceedingly kind, and the hand he put on her elbow to guide her to a seat was gentle.

A mug of something hot and steaming appeared in her hand and she drank gratefully, her backpack sliding off of her shoulders as her eyes slipped closed. Suddenly she felt very very tired, and wanted nothing more than a dark bed and a warm blanket.

The latter, at least, appeared in the form of a hand-knit quilt that someone draped over her back. An inhuman hand patted her shoulder and she leaned her forehead against her mug, softly shaking her head. She was too tired to deal with giant rats and turtles. If an enormous alligator suddenly sprang from the river and started performing a jazzy song-and-dance number, she'd probably do nothing more than blink at it.

The mental image of a huge Florida gator with a top hat and spats, singing _It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing_ amused her while the others spoke and argued amongst themselves, until she felt her mug being taken out of her hand. She opened her eyes to a green face and amber-colored eyes beneath a red mask; Raphael pulled her off of the couch and led her to an alcove, down a wide hallway and into a large, eccentrically-decorated bathroom. The sheer number of pictures pasted to the walls was overwhelming and dizzying, and she silently let Raphael lean her up against a shower wall, lifting her filthy feet into the spray of water he commanded from the tap. The room wasn't really made to fit two giant turtles and one tiny human, but Donatello came in a few minutes later and silently began patching up the burn on her arm, slathering something cold and stinging onto it and deftly wrapping it in gauze. He touched the salve to a few other spots, too, places on her leg and cheek that she hadn't even noticed. The bat she broke against Raph's chest had given her a few splinters, and they were taken care of as well. They left her in privacy for a few minutes, but she didn't feel like showering, even though there were bits of soot and grit in her clothes, and sweat-streaked grime on her skin. She knew she'd feel better if she was clean, but she was just so _tired_.

Raphael met her outside of the bathroom and she followed him back to the main area. It was so _weird_ to finally connect a face to his voice and a body to his presence. She was so used to him being a shadow; now that he'd solidified into something she could _see_ , she felt like she didn't know him all over again.

 _He_ seemed a little uncomfortable as well, she noticed. The bandages on his arm and hand – _when had those appeared? -_ would tighten and loosen as he flexed nervously, and he couldn't seem to decide on whether he wanted to watch her or not look at her at all.

"Don't worry about your room," Ruby murmured, quietly enough that he had to lean down. Damn, but he was tall. "I can stick myself on the couch." She hadn't actually seen a couch and suddenly wondered how they'd fit their huge asses onto one at all. "…Or something."

"You are a guest, miss Richards," said the _giant fucking rat_ , coming down from what looked like a kitchen with two of the turtles on his heels. Donatello had disappeared.

"It would be inhospitable of us to just 'stick' you somewhere." he said.

"This is _your_ home," Ruby replied. "It would be rude of me to displace anyone."

She and the rat stood almost nose-to-nose, staring at each other for a quiet minute. Ruby knew she had an upper ground in manners; she'd been raised in the South, where 'yessirs' and 'hey how you's' were as common as breathing. Whatever the guest wanted to do, even if it was a less comfortable situation for them, was what happened.

Finally, after a blinking contest that made her eyes water, he backed off.

"If you wish, then," he said, with a gesture. "But if you are staying for longer than tonight, I will insist you use one of the rooms."

"Fine by me," said Ruby, kicking her backpack under the large chair-thing she had been led to. She shrugged off the knit blanket and accepted the pillow that…Leonardo? She honestly wasn't sure. He had the most indistinct shape - not as beefy as Raph, taller than Michelangelo but not as tall as Donatello. He was wearing a blue mask and _what was up with the masks?_

She accepted the pillow that _most likely Leonardo_ handed to her, and sat down on the chair. The others kind of looked at her awkwardly and she looked back, feeling more like an intruder than she had yet. Was there something she was supposed to do? Was she the first human who'd ever been down here?

Raphael split from the group and crouched by the side of the chair, which still didn't put his face even below her eye level.

"I'm in the room over there, alright?" He pointed to _another_ alcove _how many did this place have_ and turned back to her. "You need me, you get me."

Ruby nodded and he nodded back, rising to his feet and following the rat out of Ruby's vision. She collapsed back on the chair, noticed the lights dimming, and was oblivious to everything else.

* * *

"Master Splinter ream you out?"  
Raph rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, trying to get the tired smoke-sting out of them. Splinter had kept him up for nearly two and a half hours, which – considering the boys' late nights – wasn't really that long, but he was more mentally exhausted than he'd been in a long time. His friend was in _danger_ , his friend was _okay_ , his friend was _actually seeing him and his family_ , she _wasn't_ freaking out, she was _here_ , in the lair, and Splinter had just given him the whole Twenty Questions deal, but with two hundred questions instead. When had they met, where, why, why did he hide it from his family, was he sure she could be trusted, what did she do, what had happened with the fire, _everything._ He had actually been surprisingly accepting of the whole thing; his boys were growing up and growing out, he'd said, and he was happy that they were finding more people to connect with – as long as they were careful. If Raph trusted her, then Splinter would support him. But then Leo had gotten on his case, again, and then Donnie, and when _Donnie_ bitched your ass out about something he got downright _nasty_ and _personal_ , and Raphael really did not want to talk about it, even though he knew that his youngest brother had gotten almost the exact same treatment, since he'd known about Ruby and hadn't told anyone.

"Go to sleep, Mikey," Raph just said. Curiously, Michelangelo had been the quietest about the whole night. He'd delighted in meeting Ruby again, but he hadn't questioned Raphael at all. Raph could practically feel Leo and Donnie fuming and musing from their respective corners of the lair, but Mikey was just laying on his bunk and petting Klunk, quietly preparing for an early night. Raph decided to take the silence, and be grateful.

It didn't last very long.

Amongst the _swingswishslash_ of Leo's blades from where he was angrily practicing and the tapping of Donnie's keys from his computer bank, quiet footsteps and the sliding of cloth across the concrete floor alerted him to another presence in the room. The glow from the fairy lights illuminated Ruby's tired face as she tentatively walked over to the bunk beds, swaddled in one of Raph's knit blankets. She peered at the bottom bunk and then the top, her eyes, sans glasses, having more difficulty seeing in the half-light than his.

"Raph?"

He quietly _hmm_ 'ed in response, knowing that Mikey was awake anyway.

"Do you…"

She looked away from the bed, into a corner, drawing the blanket further over her shoulders.

"Would you mind if I…can I…?"

He realized what she wanted with a jolt that ran through his exhaustion like a hot wire. His shell nudged against the wall as he scooted back from the edge of the bed, and she climbed up the bunk and settled down in beside him, just close enough for her knees to brace against one thigh. She still smelled of smoke and dust and sweat, but also of Raphael himself, probably due to the blanket she was using.

"Just don't roll over," she muttered into the pillow. Raph half-grinned and settled back down, watching her breathing even within seconds.

" _Dude_ -"  
"Not one word, Mikey," he growled. He closed his eyes and fell asleep to the sound of quiet laughter.

* * *

When the hell do the guys sleep? They're up all night, they're up all day, I don't know, do they have really uncertain schedules or something? I have no clue, I'm just gonna say that they go down around four or five AM and get up around one or two PM. That leaves them all of the afternoon, night, and early morning to do their shenanigans.

I am _so_ glad I'm the crazy cat lady of my shelter, because dogs make the biggest stink _ever_. True, kittens often miss the box and a few we get in often have coccidia, which stinks to high heaven, and sometimes cats just enjoy being bastards and don't cover their shit, but _puppies_ , man. _Puppies_ are nasty little rotters. Even if they don't have any illness, they're stinky. Most people let their puppies play on the grass, which is probably fine at home, but at the shelter we've had dogs with every kind of illness. The big one, parvo, stays on grass and until a puppy is six months old and has had its parvo shot, you can't put it on the grass to poop. We just got in a litter of rottie-mixes, and they're too little to go outside anyway so they poop in the kennel. _God,_ that _stink._ Admittedly, I had a kitten climb on my shoulder and shit on me last week, but still.

Donnie's being a bit of a dick because he's being cautious. The last time they invited a girl back to their place it blew up, and this isn't even a girl they knew previously, it's someone his brother has been secretly visiting for an unknown length of time, who has unknown affiliations and knowledge of them, and – even though the disaster at police headquarters turned out okay – he's still having a difficult time trusting new people.

Splinter's always going to be concerned about his sons, but he's also incredibly supportive and just plain a Good Dad.

It took me two hours – _two hours –_ to go through the film and piece together exactly what was in the new lair and where. Everything's so bright and mismatched and we don't get many good angles and I still don't know what a few of the tunnels and alcoves lead to, but I've got a general idea now. It's COOOL as FUCK, though. There's a random huge chair thing in the alcove next to Donnie's computer bank, so that's where I'm sticking Ruby.


	9. Chapter 9

Raphael was aware of three things, the moment he awoke:

One, that he hadn't slept enough.

Two, that something wet was pooling on his collarbone.

Three, that a warm body was half-curled over his side.

Sweat and smoke told him that the warm thing was Ruby, who, apparently, drooled in her sleep. He was a little afraid to move, in case he woke her up, but at the same time he was afraid to _not_ move; she'd crawled over to him sometime during the night and was half-wrapped over his arm and plastron, both of her knees hooked around his thigh and one hand clutching at the mask he had neglected to take off. It was really, really warm, and very comfortable, far more comfortable than the nights she had leaned against him on the rooftop. This wasn't even like a hug from April, who still made him blush and grin when she called him 'Raphie' and punched his arm; Ruby had never seen him until last night, and when she did? She was still comfortable enough with him that bunking at his side made her feel safe. Raphael Did Not Want to move.

Unfortunately, there was a fourth thing he realized: he really had to pee.

 _And afterward_ , Raph thought as he heard a phone snap a picture. _Kill Michelangelo._

"So using this as my new contact picture for you, bro," said his youngest brother. Raph opened his eyes to find not just Mikey, but Leo and Donnie watching as well. Even _Splinter_ briefly peered around the edge of the bedroom. Raph opened his mouth to say something before he felt Ruby tense, and he peered down beyond the mass of hair in his face. The wetness wasn't drool, it turned out; it was tears.

Mikey craned his neck to see what was wrong and Raph gave him a death glare.

" _Fuck off_ ," he mouthed, looking sharply to the entrance of the room.

His brothers fucked off; Mikey kept glancing back.

Raphael waited until everybody was out of earshot before very slowly moving his free arm. Ruby tensed again and began to draw away, before he reached across and put his hand against her back. They kind of lay there, like _what are we going to do now?_ until Ruby sighed and rubbed her wrist against her face.

"Sorry. Got your shoulder all wet."

"S'alright," Raph mumbled. He managed to wiggle his other arm from underneath her and took the chance to pull her closer. Ruby squeaked, but didn't draw away, and after a few seconds she relaxed again and settled a little further into his side. It was strange to cuddle with somebody so much smaller than him. As kids he and his brothers had stayed in the same bed, simply out of convenience and a shortage of mattresses, until they were just too big to do so, and even after they got separate bedrooms the change had been so sudden that one of them, most usually Mikey, had often crawled into another's room for comfort. In recent years it had become a rare occurrence, but his had always been a physically close family, always getting into everybody's space and business. It was difficult to have a large personal space bubble when you were a _really BIG_ guy and lived with three other _really BIG_ guys; not getting into each other's space was almost impossible. He knew that April had been bothered by it at first, before she realized that having personal space was a bit of a foreign concept to them. It probably hadn't helped that they were so much larger than her, not just in height but in sheer _mass_. Whenever April gave him a hug it was like being embraced by a spider.

Ruby wasn't particularly petite, but even though she was bulkier than April she was still tiny in comparison to Raph, and his arms swallowed her. Nevertheless, she didn't seem to mind, and they stayed in bed until he had to untangle himself and take a piss. Ruby followed him out, giving him an odd look when he bypassed the little bathroom he'd taken her previously, but she just shrugged it away and grabbed her backpack. He heard the sounds of the shower being used, and after a brief stop in his room came back to smell the artificial citrus stuff she used tangling with the warm air from the shower and the other scents of the lair. Ruby was seated on a stool in front of the chair she'd semi-slept in earlier, with Mikey handing her bottles and combs as she pulled her hair into a thick bundle. She didn't seem to be having any fits about being watched by a giant turtle, and Raph took a tiny moment to be grateful for the lack of hysterics.

Donnie was watching from a corner, and Raph wasn't sure whether to roll his eyes at Donnie's caution or at Mikey's lack of. He trudged past the alcove and Ruby gave him a smile when she saw him. He still wasn't used to that. Master Splinter and Leo came down from the kitchen holding several mugs of tea, and Raph grabbed two to take to the chair.

"Thought it was rude if someone wanted to touch your hair," he said, handing Ruby a cup. She took a sip and shrugged.

"It is, and he's not. But the fire really dried out my scalp and it's nice to have someone to hand me the bottles," she said.

"I had no idea it was so complicated, dude," Mikey hissed, watching Ruby finish a rather messy bun. She rolled her eyes and he handed her a thick band, which she tied it off with. When her arm reached up Raph noticed that it was littered with tiny scars, some pale, some dark, and one of her fingers was wrapped in a bright green bandage with paw-prints on it. He watched as Mikey ran off to get her something to eat, and he wondered if he should have let Mikey meet her earlier.

* * *

It was only on occasion that Ruby wished she were one of the people who woke up and had a brief moment of _where am I – who am I – what's going on_ ; then, perhaps, she could convince herself that the night had been a dream. She'd be at home, the alarm would go off, and she'd go through work and meet her mysterious, shadowed friend later in the evening just like normal.

Unfortunately, as soon as she'd woken up she knew that she was homeless, underground, and cuddled next to her mysterious friend who was apparently _a giant fucking reptile._ _Giant fucking reptile!_ She had _not_ expected _that._

Attempting to pretend like everything was a dream was useless; she could feel him breathing and the arm she was laying on felt like it was made of rock. One of her own had ventured up across his chest – _plastron,_ she reminded herself, _not chest –_ and her hand was grasping at thick, cottony fabric, probably that bandana thing he wore. Under her arm his skin was rough and very, very thick, warmer than she would have guessed but cooler than her own. The feeling of him breathing grounded her as her head reeled with the events of the previous night, the terrifying memory of fire and smoke and the fear and the uncertainty of suddenly not having a place to live.

She didn't realize that she'd started crying until she heard the sound of a phone camera and somebody whispering. She winced involuntarily and felt Raph look down at her; after a few seconds he moved and she tried to untangle herself, suddenly feeling exceedingly awkward, but he'd only put a hand on her back and eventually they cuddled a little further, until he got up and she went to shower. The hot water smoothed away a good bit of her worry and weariness and she walked into the main area feeling significantly better. She grabbed her glasses from where she'd left them on the chair and took a good look around. Without exhaustion and shock clouding her head Ruby could really see the place, and it was absolutely incredible.

It was immense, a huge open area with multiple alcoves and a dizzying amount of stuff under a ceiling that crisscrossed with massive pipes and extended upwards so far that she could only see shadow. On the side of the bedroom platform was a huge waterslide that fed into a small, slow river, the constant sound of running water echoing pleasantly around the area. The air smelled mostly of incense and candles, but there was still the distinct tinge of second- and third-hand water, as well as metal and mildew. Despite the sheer amount of clutter lying around the place was pretty clean and organized; everything was pushed into the various alcoves, which all were centered around a round platform and the raised area that housed the kitchen and bedrooms. There were some rooms that looked public, some private, some she wasn't sure she could even get _into_. An enormous graffitied garbage truck leered from an open wall and she saw a pale light from pink Chinese lanterns coming from one alcove, though it was out-shadowed by the bright glare that came from the half-moon of computer monitors beside her little chair alcove.

Illuminated from the bright screens, the lenses of his glasses flashing white, the tallest turtle, Donatello, was watching her.

He actually reminded her of a cat, silent and still while watching something to determine whether it was a threat or a toy. Any second now and he'd pounce on her. She decided to throw a wrench at him.

"Good morning. Donatello, wasn't it?"

He blinked, the wary _jump-kill-eat_ look that had been on his face quickly dissolving.

"Yes. Good morning," he said shortly, as if just remembering what manners were. Ruby took a comb and a bottle of moisturizer of her bag and started to get her hair under control.

"So, how did you guys end up in this place," she asked, gesturing to the pipes above their heads. "I mean, this is pretty incredible. Honestly kind of makes _my_ apartment look like a cardboard box."

Donatello adjusted his glasses and came out of the alcove a little bit.

"Well actually," he said, "We haven't really been here for more than a few years. We had several choices to go through but this place had a lot of room, and it's difficult to find. It was a bit of a fixer-upper because we had to re-route some of the water runoff and the pipes were leaking and several of the tunnels needed to be stabilized…"

Ruby just kind of sat back and watched, a little shell-shocked. She supposed that he was one of those people who talked about something in _immense detail_ when he got nervous. She learned more about the sewage and water systems of New York than she ever could have wanted within two minutes, as well as the multiple security systems in place and how exactly they had managed to get heat and electricity.

"…Which makes it easily defensible," he continued, "But Raph never mentioned any of this?"  
Ruby started at the sudden change of subject. Donatello was watching her so closely from behind those coke-bottle glasses that she figured he'd wanted to know how much Raph had told her for a good while.

She couldn't blame him for his rudeness nor his curiosity; he didn't know her and to him she was just as dangerous to his family as anyone else in New York.

"We talked a lot about books and movies and stuff like that," Ruby said, looking directly into the tall turtle's green-gold eyes. "Raph was very careful about what he said about himself and his family. He never gave me any names, any physical descriptions, hobbies, no inkling of where he lived – the only thing I knew about that you might be worrying about is the vigilante thing, and that was an accident."  
"Yeah, Mikey told me about that," Donatello murmured. Ruby nodded firmly.

"We're friends, but that doesn't mean that Raphael was indiscreet."

Donatello didn't say anything, and after several moments of silence disappeared back into his computer bank. Ruby went back to her hair, hearing the _tap-tap-tap_ of a keyboard. She didn't know what time it was, but she wanted to get started on finding a new apartment as soon as possible. Getting a decent space for as cheap as she could manage was going to be very difficult, even discounting the added expense of having to get new clothes and household items. Her backpack only had three changes of clothes, her laptop, emergency items and important documents, but she was going to have to buy clothes, cookware, possibly furniture if the apartment she found wasn't pre-furnished.

Ruby usually liked moving to a new place, but this was going to _suck._

Something brushed her leg and she looked down to see the orange kitten Raph had brought her, now grown into a lean, sleek little thing. It briefly used her backpack as a scratching post before rubbing against her ankle, claws digging onto the top of her foot.

"What up, dudette?"  
Ruby nearly dropped her comb as Michelangelo materialized behind her, circling around her chair before plopping down on a large footstool.

"Didja sleep okay?"  
Ruby almost nodded, before she remembered that Michelangelo had been on the bottom bunk. He grinned when she glared at him.

"I slept _fine_ , thank you," she said tersely. "What about you? I didn't mean to get you into trouble last night."  
He waved a huge hand at her, the other curiously digging through her backpack; she had half a mind to swat him before eyeing his biceps and deciding she'd been injured enough already.

"Don't worry about it," he said, playing with a scrunchie. "Got yelled at worse when I dropped a slice of pizza right into a Knicks game."

"You…what, how did – "  
"Can I help you do your hair?"  
Ruby blinked, derailed at the sudden turn of conversation. She acquiesced before she realized what she was doing and in the span of five seconds was actually _physically lifted_ out of her chair as Michelangelo switched seats with her.

"April almost _never_ lets me play with her hair," he chattered pleasantly as the orange kitten hopped onto his thighs, sorting through the bottles from her bag and arranging them haphazardly on the floor. Ruby raised an eyebrow to a little bottle of oil and he opened it before handing it to her.

"She's always got to look nice for the TV, so I don't really get to mess with it," Michelangelo continued, watching as she massaged it into her scalp. "But she lets me braid it after she's taken a shower over here."

"April?"  
"Yeah, you know, on TV? April O'Neil? She's a super-awesome reporter and our _hogosha_ ," he said, the last word spoken with an odd reverence. "You should totally meet her. Ohmygosh, you two can totally be roommies! I gotta call April. You want anything to eat?"  
Ruby politely refused and Mikey gave her the best _girl, please_ look that she'd ever seen. In all honesty, she was starving, but she really didn't feel like eating.

Raphael came along at that point, giving her tea and questioning her about letting Michelangelo play with her stuff until the smaller turtle put away her products and dodged around Raphael to get to the kitchen.

She took another long look her friend, this time with rested eyes, and noticed a few things skipped the night before. Scar on the lip, brand on the shoulder, tattoo _over_ the brand on the shoulder _that must have hurt_ , walkie-talkie…actually they all had walkie-talkies. Precaution thing or vigilante thing? And _what_ was with the _seatbelts?_

He loomed over her without trying, and she had to wonder at his anatomy. She'd studied turtles and tortoises for her job, and suddenly here was a _sentient, ripped, bipedal_ quadruplet as well as a _giant fucking rat._ How did his spine work? Why did he only have three fingers?

Raphael glanced behind him at where Donatello had been peering at her from around a corner and thrust something at her.

"Here."

It was a paperback of some sorts.

"…Thanks. Why?"

Raph shrugged and shook it a little bit.  
"'S a good book."  
Ruby took it with a smile and hugged it to her chest. It was a little, comforting touch of normalcy in the midst of chaos, and a look at Raph's face told her he'd done that on purpose.

"Hmm. I knew there was a reason I kept you around."

"Thought it was you couldn't keep your eyes off me," Raphael teased. Ruby gave him her best Shit Look.

"Well, _now_ I can't," she said, gesturing a hand at him. "For fuck's sake, Raph, hit the gym enough? You look like the Terminator and the Hulk had a _grumpy baby_ , and he was a _turtle_ for some reason…"  
Raphael glared at her while Mikey laughed from the kitchen; Ruby gave him her most smug smile.

"You about finished?"  
"I'm having a fantastic time, all things considering. I could do this all night. Day."

"Fuckin' hell…"

"Language, Raphael." Splinter smacked Raph on the back of the head with his tail as he came down from the kitchen and handed Ruby a bowl of Ramen's Worst Nightmare. Mikey edged around him and watched expectantly, waiting for Ruby to take a bite.

"Wait, so, you actually _hadn't_ seen Raph before," asked Donatello, peeking out from the computer bank. Ruby shook her head, mouth too full to answer. She'd taken the first bite out of politeness but found herself unable to stop. Mikey shot her a smug look and she saluted him with her fork.

"It was a bit of a game, actually," she said after emptying half the bowl. "He didn't let me for a long time, but eventually he gave me the opportunity and I just didn't take it. It was a trust thing," she said, in answer to Donatello's questioning look.

"So, you didn't know about…?"  
"The whole turtle thing? No. I am extremely surprised and ex _tremely_ curious, if you wouldn't mind explaining."

Donatello glanced at Raphael hovering over Ruby's shoulder, then folded his arms and leaned against the curve of his temple of geek.

"We're the mutated products of experimentation on terrapins with unstable chemicals from an alien dimension."

Ruby paused with a mouthful of noodles dangling from her lips.

"Whup?"

"We're _mutant ninja turtle teenagers!"_ Michelangelo happily spouted. Ruby swallowed with a cough.

"Well, twenty-somethings, really," Donatello babbled, "But I suppose that doesn't flow very well-"

" _What?!"_

* * *

The 'grumpy baby' line was inspired by a side comic by _Lackadaisy_ author and artist Tracy Butler. Check out ALL of her stuff, because there's not a single sketch or panel that's not awesome.

There's not a single TMNT universe where they're _not_ all up in each other's faces. I noticed in the 2014 film that they were all very up-close and personal with April, even just after meeting her; Raph and Mikey especially seem to have no concept of personal space, but even _Leo_ was slinging his arm over her shoulder (which was probably an intimidation tactic, but still). Donnie was examining her _real_ close after she fainted, and I know I'd be seriously shocked if a dude I'd just met tapped my chest the way Mikey did before they went off to fight Shredder.

The thing about April having a separate bathroom comes from slipstream's fic _Better Unanswered_ , which all ya'll need to read, because it's hilarious and answers a pretty decent question.

Brief callback to the 2014 movie at the end there. I'm not exactly sure what Ruby was expecting, but _aliens_ probably didn't….well….aliens _might_ actually have been considered, who knows. I mean, _Casey_ thought they were aliens.

Yes, it is I, Extremely White Girl. I had _no_ idea how much time and work goes into black girls' hair, not just for prettiness but for healthy hair itself. In comparison, my daily routine of 'wash, viciously comb, repeat' is very uninvolved and undemanding, and I shall never woe about washing long hair ever again. Moral of writing this chapter: don't ever assume you know something about how someone else does their stuff. Ever. Google everything.

Everything.


End file.
